Hi All, hope you're all having great summers and are doing well.
Wanted to wait until the word was official, but from what I have gathered on here is you guys were distraught over this hire. How you think Torts will make your top young players run out of town and your most respected veterans request to be traded. How he will be a mess and unprofessional. How he could be a massive disaster like he was in Vancouver.
I just wanted to tell you guys that us CBJ fans thought the same thing when he was hired. Literally, saying the exact same things. Especially from me, I hated the hire and wanted nothing to do with it.
However, Torts is a changed man and changed coach since his NYR and Vancouver days. I'm not going to sit here and say he's always professional and won't rub people the wrong way. Because he won't, sometimes he does it on purpose to challenge people. That doesn't always work for players. However, he almost always does that stuff AFTER talking with the players about it for a long time. You'll hear of a "bunker mentality" and he will almost always keep things in house if possible, and if its out of house, its him doing it on purpose. It's something he does to light fires under guys asses. He's not always this mean bear who picks on people, he coddles a lot too. Alex Wennberg, who almost never would shoot or score here, was coddled throughout his entire tenure here by Torts. As was William Karlsson, and now both are among the better two way centers in the NHL. When players get publicly bashed with how they're playing, he will almost always run to their defense and take the blame for them. He sticks up for his players.
He's a great coach. I am not going to pretend to know anything detailed about your team, players, or locker room (aside from Cam Atkinson, who I am quite familiar with
) but if your roster needs a shake up, an attitude adjustment, and a new winning culture. Torts is literally the best man on the job for this. He will create bonds within your locker room. He will make the players be ready to play and in shape (You'll hear all about his rigorous training camp drills. Don't expect to look good at all in the preseason).
Has his style adapted from his defense first mentality? Yeah, somewhat. He really wnats the Dmen to be active offensively,and he really wants the centers to shoulder a lot of responsibility not only on breakouts but in defensive zone coverages. He will stress blocking shots (which isn't a surprise to anyone) especially as defensemen.
Torts' actions and coaching doesn't always sit well with people. He ran Ryan Johansen out of town almost instantly, and also pushed away respected vets like Matt Calvert through stupid public comments. However, almost all the times a player "ran away" from Torts, it made the CBJ better in the long run.
I wish you guys/gals luck and an open mind to Torts. I promise he's not as bad as everyone seems to think he is. Not even close.
