At this premature juncture, there is only one coach in consideration for the Jack Adams Award.
Just short of halfway through the season, John Tortorella is doing a terrific job with his Blue Jackets, who scored seven unanswered goals en route to a 7-1 win over none other than the defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins on Thursday night.
It was their franchise-record 11th win in a row, and now, the Blue Jackets are in a tie for first overall in the NHL.
It’s impressive stuff from Tortorella, as well as team president John Davidson, putting together a team that is more than a sum of its parts. The roster is hardly loaded with talent — which also means if one of these teams flying high in the Metropolitan Division is going to come back down to Earth, it likely will be Columbus.
But maybe not.
Tortorella’s Rangers teams were hardly loaded. Goodness, do you remember who was on the ice when the Bruins scored the series-clinching goal against the Rangers in Game 5 of the second round in 2013? Here’s a refresher: Kris Newbury, Micheal Haley, Derek Dorsett, Roman Hamrlik and Steve Eminger. That was the end of Tortorella’s reign behind the Broadway bench.
But he always got every last drop out of that group — that is, until they no longer responded. That is, until the idea of the Black-and-Blueshirts wore thin. That is, until blocking shots became an almost comical refrain and players started realizing what that grinding, hard-nosed style could do to you in five, 10 years. Should we ask Dan Girardi about that?
But maybe Tortorella can keep getting the blue-collar Blue Jackets to keep playing with that midwestern work ethic. Rookie defensemen Zach Werenski — from Grosse Pointe, Mich., no less — has been a revelation, as has center Alexander Wennberg, the organization’s first-round pick from 2013 (No. 14 overall). But it wasn’t too long ago Tortorella was griping about needing more from veterans such as Booner Jenner, Cam Atkinson, and, of course, another old pal, Brandon Dubinsky.
But winning breeds hard work. When the Rangers were winning under Tortorella, nobody really cared how many shots they were blocking, or many ice packs were being utilized after games. All they were doing was counting the wins. But when those wins stop coming in bunches? It’s a little harder to motivate players to sacrifice in the same way.
But when this Columbus team inevitably hits a lull, it seems as if Tortorella is ready to accept it with a different attitude. He is the most accomplished American-born coach in the history of the league, the first to have reached 500 wins, good for 22nd all-time. He deserves all the accolades that come with that, and the perspective he has shown getting to that milestone has been the most refreshing aspect of his coaching revival.
“I’m on the back nine as far as coaching in the league,” he said this week in where else but Vancouver, where just less than two years ago, he infamously went after Flames coach Bob Hartley during his epic one-season failure as the Canucks coach. “You certainly change in certain way as far as how you handle things.”
How he will handle the Blue Jackets going forward will determine a lot in the Metropolitan Division, and a lot of how the East shakes out come playoffs time. And it will also say a lot about his legacy — and how much he has grown — if he can keep them steady and collect another Jack Adams. He has such a different public persona than when he won his only other one, in 2004.
Of course, that was with the Stanley Cup-winning Lightning, and winning makes everything look better. Even Torts.
‘I watched my son die right in front of my eyes’
What a harrowing tale of Craig Cunningham, who suffered a heart attack on the ice during an AHL game in November in Tucson, and whose mother thought he was dead. Yet through the herculean efforts from doctors — terrifically chronicled by the Arizona Daily Star — Cunningham has lived and should be released from the hospital soon.
Craig lost his father to a car accident in 1996, and his mother, Heather, raised him and her two older brothers on his own. Now 26 years old, here’s rooting for Craig to make a full recovery and live a full life.
Will people listen to Jagr now?
For years, Jaromir Jagr has been saying he wants to play hockey until he’s 50. Now that he passed Mark Messier for the second-most points in NHL history (1,888) with an assist on Thursday night, will people start believing him?
“When I said I want to play until 50, everybody laughed at me,” he said this week, “but I’ll work every day to do it.”
I, for one, believe it.
The ‘Great’ Gabby
A couple of guys in the Rangers’ front office probably weren’t shocked to hear Marian Gaborik was a healthy scratch for the Kings this Sunday. Gaborik suffered a foot injury playing for Team Europe in the World Cup, but since he returned, he has amassed just one goal and three assists in nine games.
““We have that right in the locker room as players and coaches to have high expectations of players in terms of how they play,” coach Darryl Sutter said.
The 34-year-old signed a seven-year, $34.125 million deal before the 2014-15 season, and the next four seasons after this one — with an annual cap hit of $4.875 million — surely now seem like a burden. This is the exact scenario the Rangers dreaded — and avoided — when they dealt Gaborik to the Blue Jackets in the middle of the 2012-13 season.
Stay tuned …
… to the Jets; more specifically, spectacular rookie winger Patrik Laine. Here’s the thing about the No. 2 overall pick from this past draft: He’s a great player, he knows it, and he’s not afraid to talk about it. Easy when he has 18 goals through the first 35 games of his career. He’s eventually going to slump, and when that happens, this video won’t be hard to resurrect.
Parting shot
It’s the holiday season, so let’s remember there are so many more important things than sports. Professional athletes try to balance a family life, too, and a few nice moments come along to remind us, like this from the Oilers’ Patrick Maroon, tearing up as his watches his son react to his goal.
And this, from one of the all-time good guys, Brian Boyle, saying hi to his son before a game.