RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 A big smile filled Rod Brind’Amour’s face after he and the Carolina Hurricanes finally reached the Stanley Cup Final, busting through the roadblock that stopped them so many times in his first eight seasons as coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh really? That\u2019s surprising,\u201d captain Jordan Staal said. \u201cJust kidding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Across the country hours earlier, John Tortorella refused to answer a question about what he was like 22 years ago when he coached Tampa Bay to the Cup. The following day, he was in no mood to compare himself to Brind’Amour.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo nostalgia, and I\u2019m not talking about the other team,\u201d Tortorella said.<\/p>\n
Gruff in that setting, Tortorella is more understanding with Vegas Golden Knights players as their coach, and while he and Brind’Amour differ in age and experience levels, their similarities run far deeper. They are demanding and believe in a lot of the old-school elements of hockey that lead to success in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn Tortorella, you have to block shots: If you\u2019re not blocking the shot, you will not play,\u201d said Mike Rupp, who played for Tortorella with the New York Rangers from 2011-13. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t care who you are. You will not play. It\u2019s the first thing he\u2019ll tell you. I guarantee that the first thing Torts said is \u2018You will block shots.\u2019 I\u2019m sure Rod would say the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin has been around for Brind’Amour’s entire tenure and won Olympic gold with Tortorella on the U.S. coaching staff. That experience gave him a small glimpse of why players he talks to rave about Tortorella.<\/p>\n
\u201cTorts was an assistant coach there, so he was fairly quiet, so I don\u2019t know his fully coaching style,\u201d Slavin said Sunday. \u201cBut I do know he\u2019s passionate about the game. He loves his players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rod Brind’Amour<\/p>\n
Two decades ago, Brind’Amour captained Carolina to the Stanley Cup. He played there four more seasons before hanging up his skates in 2010 and worked seven years as an assistant before getting promoted to head coach in 2018.<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes have made the playoffs all eight seasons with Brind’Amour in charge and won at least a round every time. This is the furthest they’ve gotten since the ’06 Cup run.<\/p>\n
\u201cRoddy\u2019s been unbelievable,\u201d Staal said. \u201cTalk about a guy that will never give up and will always stay with it. It\u2019s been such a pleasure to play in front of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is not always a pleasure to play Brind’Amour’s style, which relies on being relentless, predictable and pressuring opponents. Not everyone fits the mold, which resembles the way the now 55-year-old conducted himself on the ice over 1,600 NHL games as a two-way center with faceoff prowess.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarolina plays to Rod Brind\u2019Amour\u2019s identity,\u201d said retired goaltender Cory Schneider, who like Rupp is now at NHL Network. \u201cHe\u2019s got their attention. It\u2019s easy to tune a guy out. Playing that way is not fun all the time. It\u2019s not easy. And these guys still do it for him, so I think that\u2019s a great sign that his message isn\u2019t growing stale and that they still buy in to what he\u2019s preaching.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Tortorella<\/p>\n
Tortorella is 67 and running a bench for a sixth NHL team. He is only two months into coaching the Golden Knights after the abrupt firing of Bruce Cassidy in late March.<\/p>\n
They reeled off seven of eight wins to finish the regular season, with players saying Tortorella helped get their swagger back. Tortorella is enjoying working under general manager Kelly McCrimmon and for owner Bill Foley.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow lucky am I?\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cCame to know the players better now, found a way to get through the three rounds and now playing for the Stanley Cup, just, I shake myself sometime. I\u2019ve certainly pinched myself. When I wasn\u2019t coaching when the season started to what the second half of the year has brought, I can\u2019t thank the people enough that has given me an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ray Ferraro, now an ESPN analyst after playing more than 1,300 games from 1984-2002, likened Tortorella’s evolution to parenting. Tortorella has adapted to modern players and what they need.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know why anybody would think John would coach the same way as he did in Tampa,\u201d Ferraro said. “The players today, the younger people want to know why. They just told us, \u2018Go stand there,\u2019 and you\u2019d be like, \u2018I don\u2019t even really know what I\u2019m doing here.\u2019 But that\u2019s what you would do because that\u2019s what you were told. And now there\u2019s so much more detail in the way that the game is coached, and part of that detail is the why.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP Sports Writers Mark Anderson in Las Vegas and Aaron Beard in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/p>\n
Stephen Whyno, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 A big smile filled Rod Brind’Amour’s face after he and the Carolina Hurricanes finally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-706889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}