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Blue Jackets extend Head Coach John Tortorella

August 1, 2017, 11:37 AM ET [11 Comments]
Paul Berthelot
Columbus Blue Jackets Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Yesterday the Blue Jackets announced they have extended the contract of Head Coach John Tortorella through the 2018-19 season.




Tortorella has been a revelation in Columbus. He’s definitely changed his ways, not near as focused on shot-blocking as people make him out to be. He talks a lot about scoring chances and understands how important they are. He helped lead the Jackets to their best season in franchise history and won his second Jack Adams award in the process.

Sergei Bobrovsky should get some credit for helping Torts win that Jack Adams, without his Vezina performance in net the Jackets don’t come near the playoffs. But Tortorella did some good things this season which really helped the team. He bumped Jack Johnson and David Savard to the second pair in favour of Seth Jones and Zach Werenski. He assembled the best fourth line in hockey with Sam Gagner, Scott Hartnell and Lukas Sedlak, sheltering them and putting them in positions to succeed.

He did exactly what you want your coach to do. He put the players in the best positions to succeed. It didn’t matter if you were a rookie or a veteran, making money on your ELC, your skill and performance determined where you played. There were not many times this season where his coaching decisions where called into question.

I still disagree with giving up a second round pick to sign Tortorella, but you can’t argue with the success he has had. By extending Torts through 2018-19 he is not under the same contract length as Jarmo Kekalainen, John Davidson and Bill Zito, further cementing this idea that the Jackets have a two year window in which they want to contend. With all these contracts set to expire at the same time, there is no doubt this organization will do everything they can to contend for the Stanley Cup.

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