Maybe we should all be glad that John Tortorella is on ESPN: 9 things

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Call me crazy. But if I ever had the knowledge and skill to coach Connor McDavid, my first advice to him would not be to “shut up.”

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With some reflections on today’s hockey player and how the approach that coaches and managers are employing in virtually every other workplace is increasingly needed in the game, too …

9 things

9. How rare for an organization to see not just one but two of its members inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on the same day? That happened this weekend for cool Oilers Kevin Lowe and current General Manager of Edmonton Ken Holland . Both… well deserved.

8. Small sample. But about his 1 ^{S t} 2 early 2021 Stuart skinner He looks like an NHL goalie. His .902 SV% is much more revealing than his 0-2 record. Skinner has given his club a hitting opportunity in both games. I was a little disappointed that his teammates didn’t do a bit more to lift him up in either of them.

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7. Edmonton’s 2021 6 ^th Round selection Matvei Petrov has signed an ELC with the big club, a 3-year contract that would carry an annual cap of $ 843K. So far this season, the North Bay Battalion forward is 11-9-20 in 15 games. Petrov is a forehand shot that plays out of bounds. And at 6’2, the 18-year-old is probably not done growing up yet.

6. Meanwhile, Oilers 2021 1 ^{S t} Round shot selection Xavier Bourgault is dominating the Quebec Major League Youth Hockey. He has scored 5 goals for Shawinigan in the last 2 games, including a hat trick on Saturday. Bourgault is now 15-15-30 in just 15 games. The 19-year-old was also named QMJHL’s October Player of the Month. Some didn’t like this choice, but …

5. I’m cheering for both of you Ryan McLeod and Tyler benson to make their mark as Edmonton Oilers and NHL regulars. Benson doesn’t have McLeod NHL gauge wheels. But McLeod is also not nearly as quick to go into difficult areas of the ice surface as Benson. It’s never that simple, of course, but a player with his two best traits combined would probably be an 82 games / year man.

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4. The way of the young Evan bouchard It has traveled so far this season it has been a fascinating study. Bouchard’s game against Detroit was probably the worst of his NHL career. But instead of stapling him to the bench (it wasn’t a problem of effort) they kept calling his number. The next game, against a much better team in Boston, Bouchard was fabulous. I was very nervous that Bouchard might have the Jeff petry treatment. Instead, I was relieved and impressed by the patience this coaching staff has had with him. And for the most part, the fans too.

3. I like both Kris russell and Slater koekkoek . And while I have no objection to their effort, it’s fair to say that none of them have set the world on fire in that 3LD position thus far. Small sample? OK, fair. But in the meantime, prospect Philip Broberg He has improved his game several notches with the Bakersfield Condors. In the limited action I’ve seen, Broberg has been dominant. Clearly, the plan is to let the child continue to develop in the AHL. But one wonders if Broberg isn’t just an injury from a full-time NHL job.

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2. As someone who has seen every second that Connor McDavid has played this year, I trust to say that he is not getting the calls he deserves. And if you scan the league, you soon realize that McDavid is just the easy example for those who focus on the Oilers. But it’s happening to great players throughout the NHL. And for a league that is trying to sell its game to the public at the NFL or NBA level, it’s puzzling to say the least how Gary Bettman thinks this pitiful example of umpiring is good marketing. Long ago those other 2 leagues determined that fans and sponsors were in it for the stars. And the NHL will continue to track those products until it finds out, too.

1 former NHL coach John tortorella He came out last week on the same topic and suggested that instead of complaining about the lack of calls, Connor McDavid should “Honestly shut up. Don’t talk about it. Tortorella continued and added: “I think he has to change his game a bit. He has talked about culture, he has talked about standards, he has talked about winning ”and“ You have to play on the other side of the disk ”. First, let’s be fair. Tortorella is not entirely wrong. You have to play a 2-way game to win in the playoffs. And as good as he is, Connor McDavid is still not a perfect player. Fair ball. Although I have to say, I don’t hear many complaints from 97. Not at all. Is it just me?

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But the attitude and focus of guys like John Tortorella is part of what keeps the NHL from achieving greatness. There has been a changing of the guard on the NHL benches in the last 5 years. The old drill sergeants are disappearing. Some of those guys were brilliant tacticians, they understood the X’s and O’s of the game like few others. Former interim Oilers coach Ken hitchcock is the most recent example of that in Edmonton. Brilliant mind when it comes to gambling. But the tactics when dealing with players were outdated.

The worst act I have ever personally seen was a junior coach who made the team bus stop a mile out of town on a dark, icy winter prairie road and made the players, still in their wet gear, a game that was over long ago, walk. the rest of the way into town before skating them for another hour after that. They were teenagers. And anyone close to the game knows that there were other versions of that. In the worst examples, not only border about mental abuse.

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To be clear: there were many more coaches with much more sense and decency than those who, however, believed in taking down players to make them stronger. By stripping them of their creative spark and sticking to an inflexible system. That enduring the abuse of an opponent and the indifference of an official was somehow a rite of passage. I have never understood this. Why turn dancers into ditch diggers?

Fortunately, 2021 is a much more enlightened time. Corporations around the world have spent millions and millions of dollars researching how to better motivate and retain today’s best employees. And guess what? Take power trips and mind games, insult them and undermine their creativity, right? It doesn’t work today and with most people it probably never did.

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Fortunately, those kinds of dinosaurs are disappearing from boardrooms and, for the most part, they are also out of the NHL game. But what if John Tortorella really believes that the best advice is to tell the most advanced player who has ever worn a pair of skates to “shut up” and “change his game”?

Well then maybe the hockey world is very lucky. Tortorella is only on ESPN, where those things maybe make for good television, and not in a locker room doing that kind of act on the next generation of creative and talented NHL superstars.

Find me on Twitter @KurtLeavins

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