Tortorella, Golden Knights’ media avoidance after Game 6 was unnecessary attention on team
The Vegas Golden Knights are off to the Western Conference final once again, but you won’t hear much from head coach John Tortorella or any of the players about it.
After eliminating the Anaheim Ducks in the second round of the NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs on Thursday, the Golden Knights refused to open their locker room to the media, and Tortorella did not take questions at the post-game press conference.
While some hoped it would move forward without spotlight or punishment, that was far from the case. On Friday, the NHL announced that it had stripped a second-round pick in the upcoming NHL Draft from the Golden Knights and had fined Tortorella $100,000 for the misstep.
On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, co-hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton broke things down, with frustration coming from both the media and the former player’s side.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Let me do my little soapbox rant, because after the game, John Tortorella declined to speak to the media, he won the game, and was declining to speak to the media, and not only that, the Vegas Golden Knights, in their classic attention-grabbing form, didn’t open up their locker room to the media either.
I know we did this whole thing at the Olympics too, remember when everybody at the Olympics was like, “Hey, Canada’s closing their practices, and the media people who were boots on the ground were like, “Hey, this isn’t right, we want access, we want to see things,” and the mouth-breathing hockey fans, they love to sit there and go, “Who cares what the media thinks? Who cares what the media wants? Why is the media whining about this?” If you’re going to be someone who says, “I don’t care about media access,” I don’t care about people speaking, then I’d better not catch you watching a single post-game press conference. I better not catch you caring who’s in the starter’s crease at morning skate, or what line combinations are, or whenever there’s a big, healthy scratch and we clue into it eight hours before puck drop, because the player stayed late in morning skate, and the media can connect the dots. There are so many things we get, because the media has access, and teams are forced to give that access. So, for Vegas to sit here, and for John Tortorella, of all people…
He’s been fired a lot during his NHL coaching career, but he’s a great coach. I’m not saying he’s not. He’s been fired a lot. But what happens two weeks after he gets fired? He’s been on TSN in Canada for a couple of years, then he gets another job coaching, and he does the same thing: yells at the media, gets mad at them, gives short answers, treats his press conferences like a joke, and then he gets fired. And then he’s on the TNT panel, being lovable, asking questions, all that stuff, it’s two-faced, and I just… I can’t stand it, man.
Carter Hutton: I think that is the factor here, and I see mechanics fill in the chat talking about how they had to hurry up and fly out, and I’ve been in that situation before, where there’s a time on the board, but if one can do it, y’all can do it, and this is kind of the cross you bear as a professional athlete and as a coach, like there’s not a lot of questions that he needs to answer either. They are moving in the right direction, and the other factor is that, in the day and age we live in, this is why you make so much money and why you get to live the life you live as a head coach or a professional player. It just takes a little bit of time and a little bit of class, and I think this is a tricky situation because it could have been handled much more easily. You give them 10 minutes on the board; it’s quick. Guys still have their time to get their half an hour to 45 minutes after a game, where you have to take care of yourself, but 10 minutes to chat to talk to the media, it’s something that crosses your mind as an NHL athlete. I think this was a missed opportunity for the Vegas Golden Knights.
You can catch the full breakdown and the rest of the episode here…