John Tortorella wants to be an NHL head coach again.
Tortorella, 68, insisted as much to The Athletic while making his first public comments since the Vegas Golden Knights announced that he would not return to the team as their head coach. That came after he guided the Golden Knights to a run to the Stanley Cup Final this past spring.
“Oh, I want to coach,” Tortorella told The Athletic. “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.”
Unfortunately for Tortorella, the Golden Knights promoted Ryan Craig of the American Hockey League’s Henderson Silver Knights to take his place.
“I guess the word I’d use is ‘Disappointed,'” Tortorella said. “I was honest with Kelly. We met the next morning (after the Carolina Hurricanes dispatched the Golden Knights in six games during the Stanley Cup Final). … 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.”
All of the available coaching vacancies have been filled, so Tortorella will have to wait for another to open.
Tortorella was hired on March 29 after Vegas abruptly fired head coach Bruce Cassidy with eight games remaining in the regular season. Under Tortorella, the Golden Knights finished 7-0-1 to win the Pacific Division title.
Vegas rode that momentum and dispatched both the Utah Mammoth and Ducks in six games during the first two rounds of the playoffs before sweeping the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference final.
Tortorella also told The Athletic that he has no regrets about his decision to skip the postgame media session after the Golden Knights eliminated the Anaheim Ducks in the second round of the playoffs. The NHL fined Tortorella $100,000 and docked the team a second-round pick following that decision.
Still, Tortorella said he has no regrets on how the situation played out.
“That wasn’t me not wanting to do the press,” Tortorella explained. “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 (Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville) 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’s 777 coaching wins are ninth-best in NHL history.
His overall record as an NHL head coach is 777-648-166 with 37 ties, highlighted by a Stanley Cup-winning campaign with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2003-04. The two-time Jack Adams Award winner also has coached the New York Rangers, Vancouver Canucks, Columbus Blue Jackets and Philadelphia Flyers.