VANCOUVER , British Columbia — John Tortorella, self-deprecating in a way he never once was in five years in New York, took the words out of everyone’s mouths Monday, which is not such an easy thing to do.
“What is fair?” the coach of the Canucks replied when asked if it is fair to draw any conclusions in comparing his team’s lack of success with the success the Rangers are experiencing under Alain Vigneault in Year 1 of the cultural exchange behind the benches of the two franchises. “You’re going to make your own opinion.
“It’s kind of a unique thing with me and Alain. I’m losing games so I’m an idiot and he’s winning games so he’s a smart guy. Rightfully so.”
The Rangers and Canucks go at it Tuesday night, with New York closing in on a playoff spot and Vancouver on the eve of destruction, on the verge of failing to make the playoffs for the first time in six seasons.
The problems have been manifest here, and none of it has anything to do with the coach’s relationship with the media, just as none of what got Tortorella fired in New York had anything to do with that either. By all accounts, Tortorella has been a charmer behind the podium.
The issue is the charm eroded quickly behind the bench and in the room, the only places where it really counts. Forget the fiasco in which the coach charged the Calgary locker room in an attempt to confront Bob Hartley that January night, even if ownership and management aren’t likely to forget that anytime soon.
Tortorella’s narrow vision has done him and his team in this year. He has become the worst kind of zealot behind the bench, believing his way is the only way to win games regardless of his playing personnel, even if that means pounding square pegs into round holes. He is a zealot, a true believer that grinding, blocking shots and packing the defensive end is the one and only route to success.
Except now it appears as if that’s leading him to a dead end.
There is a very good chance Tortorella will be fired at the end of the season, even with four years and $8 million remaining on his contract. People who are fired twice within a calendar year need to dramatically reassess their approach, and not only with the media.
Vigneault has brought much the same approach to the Rangers that he did in Vancouver. He believes in a speed game and transition. It wasn’t always that way, though; he was a defense-first, -last and -always guy in his first gig behind an NHL bench in Montreal, and that’s how he was at the start behind the Canucks’ bench.
But he adapted to the personnel in Vancouver; understood the makeup of his teams there just as he has grasped the strengths and weaknesses of his club in New York. There are, of course, basic precepts that never change, but this coach is malleable.
Tortorella promotes an easily identifiable culture. Blood and guts. Spit out nails. Mindset. If you followed the Rangers even casually, you know it by rote. It’s not quite so easy to get a handle on the ethos cultivated by Vigneault. Really — what exactly are the Rangers beyond Henrik Lundqvist?
Vigneault is a delegator. He operates almost as a CEO rather than a head coach. He leaned on a leadership group of veterans to communicate his message in Vancouver. That is exactly what he is doing as the Rangers’ coach. There is a distance between Vigneault and his players there was and never could be under Tortorella.
As Mr. Miyagi might have said in “The Karate Kid”: Hands off, hands on.
This has been a season of fresh air for the Rangers. There has been an absence of drama. Tortorella believes conflict is good. If he said it once, he said it 100 times. But conflict ultimately beat down the Blueshirts, one by one.
It seems as if the same song is playing across the continent almost 2,500 miles away. Except where it took five years in New York, it took five months in Vancouver.
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Smart guys learn. Idiots don’t.