John Tortorella on the end with Golden Knights and what’s next: ‘I want to coach’ – The Athletic

John Tortorella isn’t done.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the Vegas Golden Knights announced just after their Stanley Cup Final run that he wouldn’t be back, the longtime NHL coach made that clear, saying that whenever another opportunity presents itself, he’s ready for it.

“Oh, I want to coach,” Tortorella told The Athletic this week in an extended conversation. “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 said that talking with former players about the game and mentoring them is what’s been keeping him going. Many of those players have become part of the coaching community, including the Minnesota Wild’s new AHL coach, Stu Bickel, and, coincidentally, the coach who replaced Tortorella in Vegas, Ryan Craig. The coaching world is a “little fraternity,” Tortorella said, and the 68-year-old isn’t ready to leave it after three decades.

“But I also understood Kelly and (team president George McPhee)’s point of view,” Tortorella said. “They’ve been developing (Craig) for a number of years there. He’s a good coach and a good man.”

Tortorella replaced Bruce Cassidy on March 29, with eight games remaining in the regular season, and Vegas went 7-0-1 in those games before its run to the Final, where the Golden Knights lost in six games to the Carolina Hurricanes.

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Tortorella is grateful for his time with Vegas but said he wanted to “finish the job.”

“I guess the word I’d use is ‘Disappointed,’” Tortorella said. “I was honest with Kelly. We met the next morning (after Game 6). … Kelly is very honest, and he let me know within one minute of sitting down in that meeting — he basically told me, ‘Ryan Craig is coaching the team next year.’ I told him what I thought, and we had an honest conversation. I truly respect where the organization is going.

“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. You just get about your business after that.”

Tortorella won the Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2004 and has 777 wins in 1,628 games in a 24-year career, coaching for the Lightning, New York Rangers, Vancouver Canucks, Columbus Blue Jackets, Philadelphia Flyers and Golden Knights. He’s 70-72 in the Stanley Cup playoffs and is the second-winningest American-born coach behind Peter Laviolette (846 wins).

But going on another deep run was certainly invigorating — especially after years of coaching less-developed teams.

“I loved it. I loved the teaching part of it,” he said. “I loved coaching in Philly, Columbus, when we were building that. But when I went to Vegas, a team laden with veterans — they had won in ’23, a lot of them — the information I got when I got there was there wasn’t a whole bunch of confidence within the group. That’s how we attacked it. I get to coach a different way. I get to coach with them, not at them.

“It wasn’t the time of year to coach at them anyway. It was the time of year to coach with them with a veteran group. I have made no bones about it. I loved working there. I thought the group — the locker room was solid, with great leadership. I wanted to still be part of that, and I was very fortunate to be part of that those three months.”

The series with Carolina was an extremely tight one, with plenty of swings. It’s hard for Tortorella not to wonder “what if?”

“There’s certain plays within the game that change the series,” Tortorella said. “I look at Game 2 in Carolina, where we win the defensive-zone faceoff, we turn it over really for no reason. We just need to keep pushing it up the ice. We turn it over, and (Logan Stankoven) scores this little wraparound goal that bounced off a couple people. Gave them some juice. That was right after Mitch Marner hit the crossbar.

“If Mitchy scores, I think we walk away with two wins out of Carolina. Who knows where it goes from there?”

In Tortorella’s view, the key to the series was Brandon Bussi coming on in relief of Frederik Andersen in Game 3 after the veteran goalie gave up four goals. It later came out that Andersen had suffered a knee injury.

“Bussi came in and played some incredible games,” Tortorella said. “We had a tough time beating him.”

Vegas goalie Carter Hart also struggled in the Final, giving up four goals in five of the six games. But Tortorella stood by his decision not to turn to Adin Hill, who won the Cup with the 2023 team but hadn’t appeared in a game since April 9.

“I’m sure there was a lot of criticism on that,” Tortorella said. “But you know what? Hilly hadn’t played in 65 days. We didn’t practice a lot. There wasn’t a lot of game situations. We were going with Carter. If it happened again the same way, we would go with Carter. He deserved to work through it. He gave us an opportunity to go to the Final the way he played in the first three rounds, especially the early rounds. … We trusted Carter.”

Any regrets overall on the series?

“No, no,” Tortorella said. “We had to play a style of game against Carolina in the Final that might have been a different tilt a bit for some guys. … I think there’s a certain style we have to play against that team. I thought we did for probably 85 or 90 percent of the time. When we didn’t, it cost us, and that’s how good Carolina was. We had to be a very patient team in that hockey series, play along the boards, make sure they come 200 (feet), not give them any chance for turnovers, and I thought we did a really good job of that, and when we didn’t, they made us pay.”

Tortorella also addressed skipping a postgame news conference during the second round against the Anaheim Ducks. He explained that he was supposed to have his availability before Ducks coach Joel Quenneville’s, due to an agreement made before the series, but Quenneville went first after the elimination game and ran long. Tortorella said he was in the hall of the Honda Center asking his PR person to get him to the media but eventually decided to join his team.

As a result, Tortorella was fined $100,000 and the Golden Knights were docked a second-round pick in June’s draft.

“That wasn’t me not wanting to do the press,” Tortorella said. “That was me not wanting to hold up my team. I had to make a decision. … I was not going to hold up my hockey team after eliminating a team from the playoffs. I had to make a decision: to wait for Joel to finish and talk to you guys and hold up my hockey team, or go on the bus with my hockey team. I’m going with my hockey team. I own that. There was no underlying (issue). It was just bad timing.”

Tortorella said he has a good relationship with the Vegas brass and talked to McPhee this week. And he’s had several conversations this summer with Craig, who played for Tortorella in Tampa Bay from 2005-08. Craig spent six years as a Vegas assistant and the past three years leading their AHL club, Henderson.

“I want to help him any way I can,” Tortorella said. “I had Craigger for a little bit, and I could tell Ryan Craig wanted to be a coach. You could see how mature he was when he came to us in Tampa and how smart he was. He couldn’t skate. I’m watching this guy: ‘How does he play in this league?’ But he was so smart, so cerebral, such a great pro at an early age. You knew it was going (to lead) to something like this.

“He’s been there nine years. He has gone through the whole process. So I understand the process, and I don’t hold any grudges at all, especially when it comes to Ryan Craig getting a job in the National Hockey League. It’s just weird for me, having coached this guy and then we’re talking, and I’m thinking maybe I want to finish the job and Kelly came in and said within 30 seconds that Craigger is in.”

As for what’s next for Tortorella, he isn’t sure. He’s had experience on TV with ESPN, but it’s unclear if he’ll return to that if a coaching job doesn’t present itself. For now, everything is still sinking in. After the Final, he and his wife, Christine, spent a few weeks in Minnesota visiting her family, and they have been back in their Florida home for only a week.

“I haven’t even thought about it,” Tortorella said. “I’m still, quite honestly, I’m still trying to swallow how close we were, and honestly, swallow how I really wanted to coach that hockey team, too. I loved being part of (the Golden Knights) the short time I was in it. I wanted to be in it longer.”