Tortorella has no one to blame but himself for big fine

LAS VEGAS — When he got hired back on March 29, John Tortorella made it clear that this wasn’t about him, that it was about the players on the Vegas Golden Knights and that he wanted to give them 100 percent of his energy and wisdom to get the team back on track.

Well, he did that and then some. The Knights are in the Western Conference Final against Colorado and they are halfway to a second Stanley Cup. He has delivered on his promise.

Unfortunately for him, Tortorella has become the story in the wake of Vegas’ second-round series-clinching win Thursday in Anaheim.

By refusing to show up at the planned postgame news conference as required by the NHL, Tortorella made himself the focus of the media coverage. Not Mitch Marner. Not Brett Howden. Not Pavel Dorofeyev. Not Carter Hart or Shea Theodore.

Torts.

Friday, the NHL fined the coach $100,000 for failing to meet his media obligations, which is kind of ironic in a weird sort of way given Tortorella came to Vegas from ESPN, where he served as a studio analyst on the network’s NHL coverage. So he was essentially in the media himself.

Also, the league made the team forfeit its second-round pick in this year’s NHL Draft. Don’t lose too much sleep over that one VGK fans. You know this team’s history when it comes to draft picks. Whoever was going to be selected would more than likely eventually wind up being moved in some sort of trade by Kelly McCrimmon.

This is the result of the Knights failure to comply with the NHL’s policies when it comes to media responsibilities. Here’s what the league said in its statement:

“The imposition of these penalties comes after previous warnings were issued to the Club regarding their compliance with the Media Regulations and other associated policies.”

The Knights can appeal the decisions if they choose by coming to the league office in New York next week and meeting with commissioner Gary Bettman in person. Will they show up? Or will they simply take their punishment and move on?

The team issued a statement saying they acknowledged the decision from the league and that they would have no further comment. It’s what you would expect them to say.

But back to Tortorella.

We’ve seen both sides of him during his brief tenure in Vegas. We’ve seen him be engaging, insightful, at times funny and informative. But since the playoffs began, we’ve seen the other side — curt, combative, uncooperative and now, silent. He doesn’t want to be asked about injuries, particularly Mark Stone’s lower body malaise which he suffered in Game 3 against the Ducks. Don’t ask him about why Keegan Kolesar is playing while Reilly Smith is sitting. Or why he’s juggling the lines or the defense pairings. You know, standard stuff every NHL coach gets asked on a daily basis.

I’m not sure if it’s the pressure of the playoffs, the pressure of trying to make the interim tag changed to permanent, which for all we know, has already been agreed upon but not made public yet, or he has such a lack of respect for those that are assigned to cover the team that he doesn’t give a you-know-what what we, or anyone else for that matter, thinks. This isn't his first rodeo when it comes to clashing with the league or those who cover it.

What precipitated Thursday? I wasn’t there so I don’t know. Someone said this was Tortorella’s way of expressing his displeasure over the NHL’s Department of Player Safety suspending Brayden McNabb for one game after he KO’d Ryan Poehling in Game 5 Tuesday. Someone else thought it may have been because the Knights were trying to get to the airport in Long Beach to get on their charter flight back to Las Vegas following the series-clinching victory in Game 6.

Who knows where the truth lies? But I know one thing — Tortorella could’ve ripped the league publicly for the McNabb suspension and gotten away with far less of a fine than he got for failing to show up at a news conference at the Honda Center for a few minutes.

So moving on with the conference finals starting Wednesday in Denver, are we going to get the Tortorella who was engaging and, dare I say it — warm and even pleasant? Or will his surliness and combativeness get ratcheted up a notch, as if it’s the fault of those who cover the team that the NHL dinged him $100 grand?

It didn’t have to get to this point. But as they like to say these days, here we are. I guess we’ll find out in the coming days where all of this goes.