When Mike Sullivan put together the United States coaching staff for the 4 Nations Face-Off, he reached out to one of his mentors, John Tortorella.<\/p>\n
He had spent years as an assistant under Tortorella and wanted him to bring his unique perspective. He wanted him to display another side of his personality too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to him, \u2018I would like you to take on a different role than you are as a head coach,\u2019\u201d Sullivan said. \u201c\u2018I don\u2019t want you to be the hammer. I\u2019ll be the hammer. I want you to be the old wise man.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018I want you to reveal yourself to the players and the other coaches. I want you to show the John Tortorella that I know, that my wife knows, that my kids know, that your kids know, that you don\u2019t show the world very often.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I said, \u2018If you can bring that to this staff and our team, I think you\u2019re going to be a tremendous value.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tortorella took exception to the word \u201cold.\u201d At 67, he has only 10 years on Sullivan.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell \u2018Sully\u2019 to [bleep] off,\u201d Tortorella said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Tortorella would rather call himself \u201cexperienced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although it was an adjustment for him to serve as an assistant at 4 Nations, Tortorella contributed his wisdom, including helping Sullivan decide when to put brothers Brady Tkachuk<\/a> and Matthew Tkachuk<\/a> on the same line.<\/p>\n The United States came close to winning the tournament, losing to Canada 3-2 in overtime at TD Garden in Boston on Feb. 20.<\/p>\n Now Tortorella will return to Sullivan\u2019s staff for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 and play a key role as the United States tries to win Olympic gold in men\u2019s hockey for the first time since 1980.<\/p>\n Tortorella wants to coach in the NHL again. But for now, he isn\u2019t leading an NHL team, so he can focus on the Olympics, scouting players on video and in person to help the United States build its roster.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have such a big base of skill and toughness and will in the U.S. program right now competing for these jobs on this Olympic team,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cFor me to be able to go out and watch this type of stuff, I mean, it\u2019s fantastic. I won\u2019t be making decisions. I\u2019ll have my input, obviously. \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to tell you how I think. I\u2019m going to tell you what I think of the player. No matter if it\u2019s good or bad, I\u2019m going to be honest with you. I think that\u2019s what I need to do and not get caught up in the name but just get caught up in how they\u2019re playing.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, so kind of a different role, but a really exciting role for me.\u201d<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n Sullivan stressed the importance of chemistry in best-on-best tournaments, not just for the players, but for the coaches too.<\/p>\n The team must come together quickly. There is little practice time and lots of pressure in high-stakes games. You must plan for each contingency and then make decisions in the moment.<\/p>\n You need people you can trust.<\/p>\n Sullivan respects Tortorella\u2019s resume and has a tight relationship with him.<\/p>\n Tortorella won the Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2004 and the Jack Adams Award as NHL coach of the year with the Lightning in 2004 and the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2017.<\/p>\n He has coached 1,620 NHL regular-season games, first among coaches born in the United States, and has 770 NHL regular-season wins, second among coaches born in the United States behind Peter Laviolette (846).<\/p>\n Sullivan served as an assistant under Tortorella with the Lightning (2007-08), New York Rangers (2009-13) and Vancouver Canucks (2013-14), plus the United States for the World Cup of Hockey 2016 in Toronto.<\/p>\n \u201cHe helped me become the coach that I am today, and now the roles are reversed,\u201d said Sullivan, who led the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Stanley Cup in 2016 and 2017 and now coaches the Rangers. \u201cIn a lot of ways, I think he takes a lot of pride in it. I think.\u201d<\/p>\n Tortorella does.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so proud of him, of where he\u2019s gone to as a coach,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cI think he\u2019s one of the top coaches, if not the top coach, in the National Hockey League.\u201d<\/p>\n Sullivan said he and the other U.S. coaches for 4 Nations and the Olympics — assistants John Hynes and David Quinn — are \u201cvideo junkies,\u201d breaking down clips and studying the little picture. With his experience, Tortorella looks at the big picture. He has a sense on the bench.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was one of his strengths when I worked with him and observed,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cHe\u2019s got a unique ability to kind of tweak personnel when things aren\u2019t going the right way or whatever. It\u2019s the art of coaching, I guess, as opposed to the science.\u201d<\/p>\n It paid off during 4 Nations.<\/p>\n The coaches spent hours sketching lines and defense pairs ahead of the tournament. On paper, the line of Matthew Tkachuk, Jack Eichel<\/a> and Kyle Connor<\/a> looked good because of the forwards\u2019 complementary skill sets. Tkachuk would go to the net. Connor would bring speed. Eichel would be the linchpin.<\/p>\n But on the ice in the opener against Finland on Feb. 13, the line didn\u2019t look good. The score was 1-1 early in the second period when Sullivan asked Tortorella about Plan B: the Tkachuk brothers with Eichel.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018What do you think?\u2019\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cAnd he goes, \u2018Give it a couple shifts. We\u2019ll see what happens.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Sullivan waited a couple shifts. Not much happened.<\/p>\n \u201cI kind of looked down at him, and he goes, \u2018Now\u2019s the time,\u2019\u201d Sullivan said. \u201c\u2026 My gut feeling is, \u2018OK, I\u2019m going do this,\u2019 and then when he kind of says to me, \u2018I agree,\u2019 that for me is the affirmation.\u201d<\/p>\n The change helped ignite the United States, which went on to win 6-1.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have the luxury of letting lines or defense pairs play their way through things,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like you\u2019ve got [an 82-game schedule and] 60 games in front of you. The tournament\u2019s over before it starts. You\u2019ve got to have a short leash. You just do, I think. That\u2019s part of that experience, right?<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that was something that \u2018Torts\u2019 brought to our staff, brings to me in particular. And sometimes I would have a coffee with him, just him and I, he has a good feel for me too. Not just players and the team. He knows me, so he has a good feel for me, and he in a lot of ways was \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s kind of like, you know, he\u2019s the consigliere, you know? He has a good feel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Mike Sullivan put together the United States coaching staff for the 4 Nations Face-Off, he reached out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-168531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}