Vancouver Canucks hire coach John Tortorella

[Mondi]

Speaking of wasted cap space: Booth + Ballard + Luogo = $14 million or 21% of the cap this season (19% last season)

Gillis keeps job, AV fired.

[Hockey Widow]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Fb2aXLNnpNo

Big bad Torts

Yeah, I posted that on page one.

Oops, sorry.

OR

I thought it was so good I'd re-post it

[Hockey Widow]

Speaking of wasted cap space: Booth + Ballard + Luogo = $14 million or 21% of the cap this season (19% last season)

Gillis keeps job, AV fired.

Wow, Booth was injured from the get go so hard to see how that can be MG's fault. Ballard was a good pick up at the time but never panned out but ya, if MG could have traded him for something he should have so I give you that.

How is Luongo ever considered wasted cap space? I guess Frattin, Scrivens and a 2nd next year would have been better use of our cap space last season? Might not have made the playoffs but better use of our cap space. And certainly it would have fixed our problem at centre ice right? Of course a bag of pucks for Luongo would have been better use of our cap space too right? Luongo was still a big part of why we mad the playoffs and he certainly wasn't our problem in them.

Its as if everyone believes that MG had a sweetheart deal he turned down because he wanted more. I just don't think thats true. What changed was BB getting fired. I honestly believe he had a deal he could live with but the landscaped changed when BB got fired and for some reason Nonis vetoed the rumoured deal after he took over and things went down hill from there.

I too have come to accept that the return for Luongo will not be a good hockey return but I am glad it will be made in the off season and was not made last year.

[Strangelove]

I wonder if they're taking their sweet time in announcing Torts because they want to announce the assistants as well.

It seems obvious Mike Sullivan will be one of em (Torts chose him in Tampa and then brought him to NY).

Arneil seems likely to be the other.

[coco_canuck]

I wonder if they're taking their sweet time in announcing Torts because they want to announce the assistants as well.

It seems obvious Mike Sullivan will be one of em (Torts chose him in Tampa and then brought him to NY).

Arneil seems likely to be the other.

They will need someone for the PP. Sullivan and Torts haven't had much success with the man advantage in neither Tampa nor New York.

Can Arniel be that guy?

[Strangelove]

They will need someone for the PP. Sullivan and Torts haven't had much success with the man advantage in neither Tampa nor New York.

Boucher!!

The more assholes the merrier....

[BCExpat]

Well one thing for sure, after game pressers will be very entertaining in Vancouver. So who in the Vancouver media is going to become Torts favorite punching bag?

[Blob Mckenzie]

I guess it's Gillis's fault nobody offered fuck all for Luongo, that Booth got hurt and that manny got hurt too probably. May as well blame him for high gas prices, the Pickton murders and the bike lanes as well.

Expat, i can see Botchford, Tony G and the Nonis fingerpuppetts; Ian MacIntyre and Ed Willes being in the crosshairs of the new coach. Acutally Gallagher will likely become a schill for the new coach. Too bad Neil Macrae retired .

[Aaronp18]

I can't wait for the media to get lambasted for manufacturing controversy, which is exactly what these rag reports need. Torts will defend his team no question, Gillis does the same thing but he uses a bucket of sarcasm. Torts will just be straight up and direct with the half assed Vancouver media.

[Mondi]

Speaking of wasted cap space: Booth + Ballard + Luogo = $14 million or 21% of the cap this season (19% last season)

Gillis keeps job, AV fired.

Wow, Booth was injured from the get go so hard to see how that can be MG's fault. Ballard was a good pick up at the time but never panned out but ya, if MG could have traded him for something he should have so I give you that.

How is Luongo ever considered wasted cap space? I guess Frattin, Scrivens and a 2nd next year would have been better use of our cap space last season? Might not have made the playoffs but better use of our cap space. And certainly it would have fixed our problem at centre ice right? Of course a bag of pucks for Luongo would have been better use of our cap space too right? Luongo was still a big part of why we mad the playoffs and he certainly wasn't our problem in them.

Its as if everyone believes that MG had a sweetheart deal he turned down because he wanted more. I just don't think thats true. What changed was BB getting fired. I honestly believe he had a deal he could live with but the landscaped changed when BB got fired and for some reason Nonis vetoed the rumoured deal after he took over and things went down hill from there.

I too have come to accept that the return for Luongo will not be a good hockey return but I am glad it will be made in the off season and was not made last year.

Far be it from me to go head to head with you HW, I'm just thinking that with 20/20 hindsight one can say it was best not to have traded RL (due to CS's injury).

But the season plays out differently if different situations unfold, including the use of 9+ million in cap hit that often occupied the bench and the pressbox. Maybe the Canucks are 2nd, maybe they play their backup vs Chicago. Maybe they have a second line that has a chance to score a goal.

I just see a series of bad moves by GMMG, and by comparison AV was solid coach for many seasons.

I'm not saying (a) that AV should have stayed or (b) that AV was without blame. But, as I tally up the bad trades, and bad contracts I have to wonder who was more to blame for the 2-12 record over the past 14 playoff games.

The coach can't make the team better when he's constantly working with the likes of Derek Roy, Tom Sestito and Dale Weise. It seems for every Jason Garrison and Dan Hamhuis, there are two duds.

[Meds]

I wonder if they're taking their sweet time in announcing Torts because they want to announce the assistants as well.

It seems obvious Mike Sullivan will be one of em (Torts chose him in Tampa and then brought him to NY).

Arneil seems likely to be the other.

Nah. Vigneault had his deal verbally in place last Friday, notified Dallas he was out, and the Rangers still didn't officially announce until Monday or Tuesday. It's just the way things are done.

[Hockey Widow]

To me the biggest blunder MG has made was at the centre position. He trades CoHo just before the end of last season. He feels strongly that Manny is done this year and he knows Kesler will not be ready to start the year. That was what screwed us all year, lack of centre depth. I think if he had been offered a centre of merit he would have made the Luongo deal. But his inability to get the centre position shored up, to me, was his biggest blunder.

[Uncle dans leg]

Boucher!!

The more assholes the merrier....

Where's that hand slapping GIF...

[Uncle dans leg]

I think Torts will help turn Kassian into the asshole we all know he can be. Vinyo had him on a rediculously short rope but this isn't how one fosters the sphincter-ness....it must be channeled.

We can only hope the bellowing blowhard will draw out the pus-like anger within and turn our mild mannered winger into...

The Sphincter-STER

[Boston Canucker]

Finally, Boston_Canucker I'm interested in your take as someone more up-close to the Rangers the past few seasons. At the start of each season I've always thought, "here come the Rags, finally made that move to make them truly elite, watch out Eastern Conference". Looking back with hindsight though, I believe the Rags have been grossly over-rated, outside of Lundqvist. If you make a list of the worst contracts in the League, almost all of them are Rangers - Redden, Gomez, Drury, Rozsival, Gaborik, Richards (if he doesn't bounce back).

Sather has made a blockbuster move every year that gets the national media (i.e. ESPN) in a tizzy, but almost all of them have been busts. I would say Torts met reasonable expectations with his teams, maybe slightly over-performed a few times, but I would not say he under-performed with the teams he had.

In Torts' defense, I will say that the great King Henrik has rarely really raised his game in the playoffs. He did this year, in coming back against the Caps, he was great, but HL was never the game-changing goalie in the playoffs that he should be. Beyond that, my issue with Torts is that he wore his own team down (this is also the issue with the many Rangers fans I know, who got tired of the shotblocking and the tight reigns on the offensive players), and that despite the fact that he had enough offensive talent to expect more production, his team's PP and offense was, to say the least, underwhelming. Sather takes blame too, but it's on the coach to figure out how to get players into a position to do what they do best. Torts even admitted after they lost to Boston that he could not get his players to get to the next level, and one of them was Nash, he was only in his first year under Tortorella. And yes, Sather takes some blame too, but he has also gone out of his way to find talent for the Rangers, offensive talent. The Rangers PP and general offensive production under this coach was just not good enough, and while the team did not have Pens/Hawks level talent,they had enough to be better than they were. I know many a Ranger fan who is not happy with Sather, and I don't know a single one who was upset with his firing; they were thrilled with it. Maybe it is familiarity breeds contempt, as happens with AV

My main worry is about the playoffs. I actually think he'll get the team to the playoffs; there will be a spring in their step in a tough new division, and they'll be in the mix somewhere. But at least with the Rangers, his teams peter out, and he doesn't have - or didn't with the Rangers - that next level or adjustment to get them past teams they could have beaten. Most Rangers fans I know really feel that they should have beaten the Devils last year, but among the many things that kept that from happening, one was the view that Deboer outcoached Tortorella. I'm always suspicious of the whole "outcoached" thing, but I do agree that that was a winnable series for the Rangers.

My hope is that Tortorella has a very positive effect on young guys like Kassian, Jensen, and Gaunce (Stepan did blossom under him) and on the D-core, especially Edler who needs his own personal re-set.

It looks like he is the coach, so I'll be on board and hope for the best.