This is four years old, from his CBJ days, and should dispel some myths.
Tortorella declined to be interviewed for this story, but
The Athletic contacted several players who played for him during NHL stops with the
Tampa Bay Lightning, New York
Rangers,
Vancouver Canucks and the Blue Jackets.
Some were willing to talk on the record, and others spoke off the record to provide background, but they all delivered essentially the same message:
Tortorella has chastised players in the middle of the dressing room or even on the bench during games, and there were times the confrontations were uncomfortable. They left the rink angry with him on occasion, and they often disagreed with his coaching decisions and/or his approach.
But they also were emphatic: They never witnessed Tortorella crossing the line to being verbally or physically abusive.
“Torts is pretty out-front and in the open,” he said, with a laugh. “There aren’t many mind games, per se. If Player A isn’t getting it done, he’s told ‘if you do this and this, you’ll play more.’
What saves Tortorella in his relationships — not just with players, but management and media, etc. — are the times when he’s genuinely kind and caring, his current and former players said.
He’s on a first-name basis with bus drivers and rink techs in several cities along the NHL circuit. He’s well known for his activism in rescuing dogs and horses.
When a player needs an afternoon or a day to deal with a family matter, he demands they get away from the team for as long as they need.
Dubinsky made an interesting observation, too. In all of those YouTube blow-ups in New York, and in some of his other famous fracases — charging the Calgary Flames’ dressing room in Vancouver in 2013-14, for instance — there was a common theme.
“If you look at all of those clips … you realize he’s actually protecting his players,” Dubinsky said. “He’s stepping in front of his guys. People can think about him however they want, but in his mind, he doing these things because he’s protecting his players.
It's been a tumultuous time for some of the NHL's notorious old-school coaches.
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