RALEIGH — Golden Knights head coach John Tortorella insists that “I just don’t want to go into me. I just want to talk about the team.” Like it or not, though, one of the NHL’s most accomplished—and polarizing—figures is a defining storyline of the Stanley Cup Final, beginning Tuesday against the Hurricanes.
Tortorella, a prior Stanley Cup winner with the Lightning, took over a then-floundering Vegas team on March 29, and the subsequent results have been nothing short of historic. After giving up his gig as an on-air hockey analyst with ESPN, Tortorella has led the Golden Knights on a 19–4–1 tear that now has the team on the cusp of a second championship in four seasons.
With that heady run, Tortorella is only the third coach in NHL to reach a Stanley Cup Final with 10 or fewer regular-season games with that team, joining the 2000 Devils with Larry Robinson and 1982 Canucks with Roger Neilson.
“We really didn’t make a bunch of big changes within the team,” Tortorella said of quickly forging ties with the Golden Knights players. “But you bond by going through experiences together. It’s a good group, and a group that can handle themselves.”
It’s not been an entirely smooth run through the postseason, though. After repeated violations of league media protocols, particularly during the second round of the playoffs against the Ducks, the NHL fined Tortorella $100,000 and stripped the Golden Knights of a second-round pick in the upcoming draft. Those penalties were held up on appeal.
