John Tortorella hasn’t closed the door on coaching at 68, some two months after his latest, brief stint ended two wins short of a Stanley Cup and not being retained by the Vegas Golden Knights.
“Oh, I want to coach,” Tortorella told The Athletic this week in a story posted on Friday. “I want to coach now. I’m not sure if that happens, and that’s where I am in my career. But I wanted to coach that Vegas team. I told (general manager Kelly McCrimmon) that.”
Tortorella’s tenure in Vegas began with him replacing the fired Bruce Cassidy with eight games left in the regular season. And it ended in mid-June with the Golden Knights losing the Stanley Cup Final in six games to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Though Tortorella pushed for his return, he said he respected McCrimmon’s decision to promote minor-league coach Ryan Craig.
“They’ve been developing (Craig) for a number of years there,” he said. “He’s a good coach and a good man.”
Tortorella has 24 seasons of NHL head-coaching experience, with the Golden Knights representing his seventh stop — including two separate tenures with the New York Rangers. He enjoyed his longest stint with Tampa Bay, spanning 2000-01 to 2007-08, during which he won his only Stanley Cup in 2004. He also coached in Columbus, Philadelphia and Vancouver.
From Boston, Tortorella is sixth on the NHL list and first among U.S.-born coaches with 1,628 games coached. Tortorella’s 777 career wins rank second among U.S.-born coaches behind Peter Laviolette’s 846. With a 70-72 career playoff record, he’s 20th on the NHL list in wins.
Tortorella lamented coming up short on winning a second Cup.
“I guess the word I’d use is disappointed,” Tortorella said.
“We didn’t finish the job, and I wanted some more time with that club to try to finish the job. That’s not my call. That’s the general manager and president’s call,” he added. “You just get about your business after that.”
