In an announcement which will reportedly be made official tonight and which would come as a huge surprise, John Tortorella will be named Team USA’s head coach for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
John Tortorella will be named head coach of Team USA's entry for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey tonight after MNF. #TSN
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) September 21, 2015
Tortorella has more NHL wins than any American NHL head coach with 446. He is also without a job in the NHL.
The names that were bandied about in the hours leading up to this were nowhere close to Tortorella. The Predators’ Peter Laviolette and the Sabres’ Dan Bylsma were thought to be candidates. But with Tortorella having nothing to do, this is the perfect opportunity for him to get back into the game, concentrate solely on the tournament, and prove that he can coach on a big stage without charging another country’s locker room between periods.
As for what this means for Team USA, it depends on what kind of team Torts wants to put together. He was hell bent on creating a team of shot blockers and suffocating defenders to supplement great goaltending like he did for Henrik Lundqvist in New York. This was in contrast to the “Safe is Death” team that he coached to a Stanley Cup in Tampa in 2004. So which will it be? My guess would be the latter. While Torts’ Rangers teams ran out of gas by the second or third round blocking a million shots in two months of Stanley Cup playoff action, this style could play very well in a two week round robin tournament. The question then becomes: would players want to head into a full NHL season already exhausted after two weeks of blocking shots for Tortorella?
This is a truly boom or bust scenario on all sides. Kudos to USA Hockey for taking that chance.
