Canucks hiring Tortorella

[Guest]

The Vancouver Canucks have called a news conference for Tuesday to announce the hiring of John Tortorella as head coach.

You can watch the news conference live on TSN2 and right here on TSN.ca at 4pm et/1pm pt.

Tortorella was fired by the New York Rangers last month following a second-round loss to the Boston Bruins. In 319 regular-season games with New York, Tortorella went 171-118-30. He was 19-25 in the post-season and reached the playoffs in four of five seasons after taking over as coach in February 2009.

Tortorella was behind the bench for the Tampa Bay Lightning from 2001-08 before taking the same role with the Rangers.

The 55-year-old won the Jack Adams Award as NHL Coach of the Year in 2004 when he led the Lightning to their first-ever Stanley Cup.

Other candidates for the coaching position included Los Angeles Kings assistant John Stevens and former Columbus Blue Jackets head coach Scott Arniel, who coached the Canucks' AHL affiliate in Chicago.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=426206

[wr50l]

I will be interested to see if he brings in a powerplay coach from the start. If not, Canucks fans can look forward to mind-numbingly poor 5 on 4 play.

I get that the Canucks wanted to toughen up, but I think this could be an absolute disaster. The game has passed him by; hitting and shot blocking is out of style. There is no doubt the Sedins are going to hate his demanding personality. Leaf said to me that the media was suggesting his strategy would be good in the West. I couldn't disagree more. Torts' solution to puck possession is just to forecheck more and his break out plays are all so basic, Western Conference teams are going to eat up this base level of strategy.

[wr50l]

Torts wants his assistant Mike Sullivan in Vancouver too. Stick him on power play duty again, what could possibly go wrong?