When you have a conversation with John Tortorella, it is going to be a no nonsense conversation. It will also more often than not be a one-way conversation that is mostly him speaking. He had a whole lot to say after his team’s 6-4 win against the Boston Bruins though. Mostly about the coach’s challenge.
He is referring to a goal against Joonas Korpisalo where it looked like Loui Eriksson made minimal contact with the Finnish goaltender. The question then becomes about whether or not he had the ability to make the save he wanted to make.
Here is the full quote from the ESPN video:
“Oh, gosh. You know what? Just get rid of the coach’s challenge, just get rid of it. The whole being of the coach’s challenge is to get it right. If we can’t get it right on that call, then get rid of the coach’s challenge because all I did was waste a timeout. It’s discouraging. That is a no-brainer call. If they vote again for it, no coach’s challenge, as far as this organization is concerned.”
When asked if he would think twice before using his challenge in the future, Tortorella continued: “I think you should get rid of it. I think we should just get rid of it and let the refs make the call. If we spend two or three minutes and a coach wastes his timeout to try to get the call right, and we still get it wrong, why have it?”
“I wanted my timeout back, quite honestly. Listen, I respect the referees. It is a really tough job, but I thought this was for that reason — to make their job easier. It gives them a chance to look at it again, get some information from hockey ops, but to get that one wrong, it’s just beyond belief to me.”
As always Tortorella has a way with words and didn’t mince any of them last night. The coach’s challenge has been met with a lot of trepidation and hasn’t been accepted the way many others had expected. Does Tortorella have a point?
