It is a bit hilarious that a Maine Blackbear pulled that move… that must be karma, Chuck.
Yeah, pretty funny stuff ... about as funny as the plague. Petty, small-minded move by a petty, small-minded jerk who apparently literally is the only NHL head coach to ban I-Pads from his team's bench area. The following article goes WAY too easy on Tortorella, but there is a video of the Philly broadcast somewhere on Twitter/X that cuts in during a break in the Caps-Flyers game at about 4:00 left, when the Philly crew shows the Wings' David Perron tying their game in Montreal with 3 seconds left. Flyers goalie was still in their goal, and would be until about 3:18, but the point being that as soon as Perron scored, the Wings had eliminated the Flyers, so there was no need to pull their goalie anymore, since even a regulation win with the goalie pulled wasn't gonna do it for Philly. They would still have been at least one (and as it turned out, two) points behind DRW. The article is also a litte misleading about the Penguins' elimination, though, as putting aside what Tortorella and the Caps did, the Penguins would also have been eliminated by the Patrick Kane shootout game-winner that followed a few minutes later in Montreal.
Flyers pulling goalie vs. Capitals cost NHL teams a playoff spot (usatoday.com)
For the neutral, it was probably a really exciting thing to watch play out ... but super-exciting and super-stressful from the point of a fan with skin in the game. Something you'd never ever see in the NCAA postseason, since everyone makes the (MBPGEGAM) playoffs. I post on a few DRW sites, and follow them on X, and discussion had actually come up earlier in the day about "what if?" the Wings hadn't won or tied (yet) and the Flyers (who needed both the Caps and DRW to lose in regulation) to even have a shot, were tied late and pulled their goalie. My take was that Tortorella was old-school guy, and wouldn't disrespect the game by pulling the goalie needlessly, if his team had already been eliminated.
That take - like my "puncher's chance" analysis of UNH @ UMaine in the HEA QF's - did not age well, did it?
As you can imagine, I've been digesting everything on this over the last 24+ hours, and despite his claims that he "didn't know until after", he was (by his own post-game words) getting intel on the bench, and claims he was told right after the ENG GWG (3rd in 100 years of NHL history) that "Detroit had tied it". Problem is, there is the Philly broadcast putting the Detroit goal almost a full minute PLUS a break in action before the goalie pull. There's a pretty good chance Tortorella and his players were the only folks in the arena who DIDN'T know they were out by the time he pulled the goalie. Unless of course, Torts was lying, and he was just being a petty jerk about it, in a "if I can't have it, then screw the rest of you" way. The evidence suggests this is VERY possible/likely even. It still makes me sick to my stomach, just reliving it almost two days later.
The funny thing is, if Tortorella plays it square, and the Caps score a winner in regulation or OT against a goalie, none of this is an issue, and no one can criticize the Flyers or their coaches. If Tortorella asks whomever was giving him intel, one final time at the 4:00 minute break, what the score was in Montreal, he'd have known. I can't let myself believe an NHL coach in his spot would NOT ask at that point. So I think Tortorella is a POS right now. And if his brother Jim (a UMaine AND UNH guy) is reading this, I hope he passes on my kind words of praise lol.
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Some random UNH-related comments on some of the other things percolating on here ...
* JVR is washed up. He's not even a 3rd liner any more. He's a fourth line/PP specialist, and lately a healthy scratch;
* Warren Foegele is now officially an NHL 20 goal per season guy, scoring his 20th last night in the RS finale;
* Someone over on Main St. should be working hard to find a way to honor Jack Edwards next season;
* Our back-up goalie issued a
farewell message to UNH on his way down to Storrs? Why, was it a ransom note?!?
