John Tortorella, top (AP)
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The final day John Tortorella publicly spent as the coach of the Rangers, he had his back against the wall and his guard up, the only way he would have liked to go out.
Yesterday general manager Glen Sather announced the firing of Tortorella, an unceremonious end to an era that dovetailed into an open conflicting of opinions between players and coach during Monday’s break-up day, one that turned out to be the final straw that broke this stubborn camel’s back.
“Every coach has a shelf life,” Sather said on a conference call, also announcing his plan to stay on as GM. “I’ve told every guy that I’ve hired that at some point in time, this is going to change. Our goal is to win the Stanley Cup, and we didn’t achieve that goal this year. I had to make the decision, so I did.”
The Rangers’ season ended Saturday in Boston, losing in five games to the Bruins in the Eastern Conference semifinals. It was one round short of last season’s run to the conference finals, and how the results were interpreted showed an irreconcilable difference of opinion.
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Franchise backbone goaltender Henrik Lundqvist called it “a step backward” while captain Ryan Callahan said the team “underachieved.” Tortorella, on the other hand, called it “a sideways step” and added, “I know that a surrounding feeling [is] it was a negative season, a disappointing season. I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it and I won’t.”
Hired to replace Tom Renney on Feb. 23, 2009, Tortorella has the most wins of any U.S.-born coach in NHL history (410), and finishes his Broadway tenure with the fourth-most wins (171) in franchise history.
Sather would not get into the details of why he fired Tortorella, admitting his vagueness after saying, “It wasn’t one thing, and I’m not going to speculate or start to criticize what happened with Torts and give you a lot of reasons why we decided to do this.”
Lundqvist might have been one of them. The reigning Vezina Trophy winner is poised to be a free agent after next season and was lukewarm about re-signing, saying on Monday, “I’ll talk to my agent and we’ll take it from there.”
“We plan on signing Henrik to a long-term contract,” Sather responded. “I’m not going to make any public comments on the negotiations, how and when they’re going to take place. But it had nothing to do with this. This was a decision that I made.”
Another decision Sather also said he had a hand in was scratching former Conn Smythe winner Brad Richards for the final two games of the Bruins series. Richards, 33, is due $6.67 million per year until 2019-20, and because of the precipitous decline in his game has become a prime candidate for the Rangers’ final amnesty buyout. Sather can use that either this summer or next to send Richards packing and wipe his cap hit off their books.
“At this time, I’m not thinking about that,” Sather said about Richards. “I’m trying to deal with this situation and move forward.”
As for moving forward, Sather continued to be evasive about the type of coach he would like to hire. He did not declare any decision on assistant coach Mike Sullivan, but it’s hard to imagine an instance where he and his putrid power play would be welcomed back.
The most logical choices out there for possible replacements start with Lindy Ruff, the longtime coach of the Sabres who was fired early in the year. After him come former Canucks headman Alain Vigneault, and then possibly Dave Tippett, whose contract with the Coyotes expires on June 30. And the franchise could also pull on its fans’ heart-strings by calling on icon Mark Messier or former coach Mike Keenan.
“There are a lot of factors when you go looking for someone to develop and help your team get us to your ultimate goal,” Sather said. “And as you know it’s not an easy thing to achieve, but we have to keep striving to get there.”
The striving continues, but now it goes on without Tortorella.
bcyrgalis@nypost.com