John Tortorella is a good hockey coach. The Bruins are likely to be searching for their next coach soon. In this case, 1+1 does not equal 2.
Joe Sacco’s first requirement for making his interim gig permanent was making the playoffs. That might not have been enough. But missing the playoffs certainly sealed his fate. So the Bruins are going to be hunting.
Tortorella will sound tempting for a certain segment of Bruins fans. For starters, they’ve heard of him. By nature, hockey coaches don’t have the same Q rating that their counterparts in other sports enjoy.
Tortorella is the exception because he is loud, bombastic, unfiltered and prone to going viral. He’ll yell at officials, his players and the media in a fashion that is both memorable and often entertaining.
For the segment of the old-school fan base that wants a new sheriff to show these pampered, soft, overpaid millionaires a thing or two, Tortorella will be an appealing choice.
But for a franchise trying to get itself back on solid footing, he’s not the right one.
Tortorella can make a good team better. He’ll instill a certain ethos defensively. His teams will block shots and make little plays to improve. But like Mike Keenan, a generation ago, it never works for long stretches. The fire started by the friction he creates is warm at first, but eventually starts burning things.
Tortorella is not the guy to oversee what the Bruins have in front of them right now. The Flyers were facing an incredibly similar rebuild and fired Tortorella because he failed to accomplish it. Not only that, but after a loss earlier this week, he said he wasn’t interested in learning how to coach in just such a predicament.
“When you’re in this type of situation and you’re losing all the time, and there’s nothing at the end of the tunnel for you, there’s certainly going to be some frustration,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But this falls on me. I’m not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season, where we’re at right now.”
See if this sounds familiar:
The Flyers dealt away their older core and are constructing a roster around younger, developing players. That requires patience and skill at developing. That’s the Bruins now and unless Don Sweeney pulls a rabbit out of his hat, it will be the 2025-26 Bruins too. It hopefully won’t be as dire as things been this month, but it’s not realistic to think they’ll be right back in the Atlantic Division mix next year.
The Bruins are looking for someone who can uncover the best versions of Mason Lohrei, Casey Mittelstadt, Matt Poitras, Fraser Minten, and Marat Khusnutdinov, while still harnessing the skills of David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman.
Part of the reason the Flyers got rid of Tortorella was their concern about his impact on Matvei Michkov’s development.
At his best, Tortorella is a pitching wedge. He can bring a team from the fringe onto the green. The Bruins are still a fairway wood away from being in contention.
