{"id":823366,"date":"2026-07-24T15:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/823366\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T15:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:57:08","slug":"john-tortorella-wants-to-keep-coaching-defends-costly-decision-to-skip-presser-in-playoffs-with-vegas-golden-knights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/823366\/","title":{"rendered":"John Tortorella wants to keep coaching; defends costly decision to skip presser in playoffs with Vegas Golden Knights"},"content":{"rendered":"

After leading the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> on a surprising run to the Stanley Cup Final this spring, John Tortorella has no interest in walking away from the game. <\/p>\n

The Golden Knights announced in June that Tortorella, whose contract was expiring, would not return, promoting Henderson Silver Knights coach Ryan Craig to take his place. <\/p>\n

The 68-year-old Tortorella replaced Bruce Cassidy with just eight games left in the season, leading Vegas to a 7-0-1 record to win the Pacific Division. The team then eliminated the Utah Mammoth<\/a>, Anaheim Ducks<\/a> and Colorado Avalanche<\/a> before falling to the Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> in the Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I want to coach,\u201d Tortorella told Joe Smith of The Athletic in his first public comments since Vegas announced he would not return<\/a>. \u201cI want to coach now. I\u2019m not sure if that happens, and that\u2019s where I am in my career. But I wanted to coach that Vegas team. I told (general manager Kelly McCrimmon) that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tortorella added that McCrimmon didn\u2019t leave him waiting long to inform him of the team\u2019s decision as Craig had already been tabbed to take over. <\/p>\n

\u201cI guess the word I\u2019d use is \u2018Disappointed,\u2019\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cI was honest with Kelly. We met the next morning (after Game 6). \u2026 Kelly is very honest, and he let me know within one minute of sitting down in that meeting \u2014 he basically told me, \u2018Ryan Craig is coaching the team next year.\u2019 I told him what I thought, and we had an honest conversation. I truly respect where the organization is going. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t finish the job, and I wanted some more time with that club to try to finish the job. That\u2019s not my call. That\u2019s the general manager and president\u2019s call. You just get about your business after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The veteran head coach will have to wait for a vacancy to open as every job in the NHL has been filled this off-season. His success with the Golden Knights this year, though, could sway a team into making an in-season change for a boost.<\/p>\n

A native of Boston, Tortorella previously served as head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers<\/a>, Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a>, Vancouver Canucks<\/a>, New York Rangers<\/a> and Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> over a 25-year head coaching career. He led the Lightning to a Stanley Cup title in 2004.<\/p>\n

Tortorella\u2019s 777 regular-season wins are ninth all-time among NHL head coaches.<\/p>\n

No regrets on costly choice to skip presser<\/p>\n

Tortorella spoke to Smith about his decision to skip the postgame media session after the Golden Knights eliminated the Ducks in the second round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

The NHL fined the head coach $100,000 and docked the Golden Knights a second-round pick for the incident, but Tortorella said he has no regrets on how the situation played out.<\/p>\n

Tortorella said that he was supposed to speak before Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville, but the schedule suddenly flipped after his team\u2019s Game 6 victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat wasn\u2019t me not wanting to do the press,\u201d Tortorella explained. \u201cThat was me not wanting to hold up my team. I had to make a decision. \u2026 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 Joel to finish and talk to you guys and hold up my hockey team, or go on the bus with my hockey team. I\u2019m going with my hockey team. I own that. There was no underlying (issue). It was just bad timing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tortorella is no stranger to forfeiting pay to the league. He\u2019s been disciplined eight times since 2009 for various infractions, surrendering more than $250,000 and missing three games due to suspension. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After leading the Vegas Golden Knights on a surprising run to the Stanley Cup Final this spring, John…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[712,49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-823366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823366","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=823366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}