The dog days of downtime

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1 The dog days of downtime Iain MacIntyre The Vancouver Sun February 19, 2014 Soul search: Suffering through the worst losing stretch as a coach, Torts reflects on what he s done wrong and how he might fix it Unable the last 10 days to work on his shattered team s physical game, coach John Tortorella instead devoted himself to the mental game. His mental game. On long, rain- soaked walks with his four dogs, Tortorella covered most of Point Roberts on foot, pondering the longest losing streak of his National Hockey League career and thinking about how to put the Canucks back together when their season resumes next week. With his wife, Christine, away visiting their adult son, and Canuck players and staff scattered for the Olympic break, Tortorella had many hours to think at home on the American side of Tsawwassen. So he took the dogs on hikes or sat in Brewster s, the local restaurant- bakery- grocer. By the sound of it, mostly he beat himself to a pulp. I have not left Point Roberts, Tortorella said Tuesday on the phone. There are a lot of woods and there s not a lot of people around right now compared to the summer. Even when it rains I actually prefer it you re in the woods and it s beautiful. You just get lost. I wanted to clear my head because a lot of crap happened toward the end here before the break. The biggest fault of mine to the team is that I have not taught well enough. Something I take a tremendous amount of pride in are the details of the game, but I continue to see us make the same mistakes. The crap to which Tortorella refers includes the seven- game losing streak that dragged the Canucks into the Olympic break after a 3-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Feb. 8 In a five- minute span of the third period that night, the Canucks turned a one- goal lead into a two- goal deficit, indicative of a 14- game stretch that saw Vancouver outscored 20-3 in the final period. The last third- period goal by a Canuck forward was scored Jan. 10 ( Mike Santorelli, now out for the season with a shoulder injury) in a 2-1 win against the St. Louis Blues. If you re looking

2 for positive symmetry, the Canucks begin their 22- game regular- season stretch drive next Wednesday against the Blues. The Canucks, minus their seven Olympians, open a mini- training camp today at Rogers Arena. Their best news in weeks besides the moratorium on NHL games during the Sochi Olympics is that key injured players Henrik Sedin ( ribs), Kevin Bieksa ( knee) and Chris Tanev ( thumb) are well enough to practise. If they re not on the ice with the main group today, they should be by the weekend, Tortorella said. They may find a different Tortorella when they return. A big part of my reassessment was: Which players do I have to coach differently? he said. Because it hasn t worked. I will name one player because he s very important to us; I have not been able to get ( defenceman Alex) Edler to a level of play that I know is there. I don t think that can be with tough love. I don t think that works with him. I do have to make adjustments with other guys. Some I have to back off and some I need to push ( who) are maybe a little bit stubborn or not listening. The coolest thing for me about coaching is the teaching part of it. I take a lot of pride in it, but I have failed. I have not gotten to enough people for us to be consistent. The Canucks started December and are since then, and Tortorella said he has never experienced such a dramatic and extended downturn. He doesn t believe, as many people do, that his team s problems late in games are because his best forwards are tired from logging significantly more minutes than they did under previous coach Alain Vigneault. Tortorella makes the compelling argument that many critical mistakes have been made by Canucks playing far fewer than 20 minutes a night. A lot of times, it s not the 20or 22- minute guys making the mistakes, he said. You d be surprised some of the mistakes made by eight-, 10-, 12- minute guys. These are glue guys who need to make sure they re sharp ( mentally) because they re not filling the net. But, again, the responsibility falls on me. I need to teach our top guys and our glue guys how we need to play in certain situations. Those who witnessed Tortorella s rants with the New York Rangers the last couple of years and still believe, despite his generally admirable comportment in Vancouver, that he is all about ego and arrogance and bullying, well, they should see him now. Determined at this stage of his career to be known as a Stanley Cup- winning coach, not some kind of carnival act, the 55- year- old has been gutted by the last month. His embarrassment at earning a sixgame suspension for charging the Calgary Flames dressing room on Jan. 18 was

3 heightened by the deterioration of Canuck play that followed it. The Canucks have slipped one point out of a playoff spot. Tortorella feels a responsibility to make good. Hopefully, players do, too. It s easy for people to say: Just forget about it and just think about the next game, Tortorella said of losing. But you get into an abyss, and you can t even see the other end, it s so bad. It s hard. And you re speaking to a coach; imagine how the players feel. They re wearing the uniform and trying to get things done. I don t think we re going to change every player s habits or every player s thinking mode in certain situations. But we have to get a percentage ( of the mistakes) out of there in order to stay in this. We re still in it. We certainly have allowed teams to catch us, but we re still right there. We need to be better these 22 games or we will not have a chance or we will not make the playoffs. Canucks at Olympics: Most have contributed Elliott Pap The Vancouver Sun February 19, 2014 Seven Vancouver Canuck players went to Sochi to compete for medals and, so far, only the Swiss have swung and missed after their surprise elimination Tuesday at the hand of Ted Nolan s plucky band of over- achieving Latvians. Roberto Luongo and Dan Hamhuis ( Canada), Daniel Sedin and Alex Edler ( Sweden) and Ryan Kesler ( United States) remain in the hunt while Yannick Weber and Raphael Diaz are on their way home. Here s a capsule look at the seven Canucks: ROBERTO LUONGO: Although there was much speculation that Luongo, the goldmedal winning goaltender in 2010, would be Team Canada s starter, the coaching staff obviously thought otherwise. Luongo was given just one game, against Austria, and was perfect in stopping all 23 shots he faced. If he plays again, it means Carey Price has been hurt, or has screwed up. Luongo will be wearing a ball cap for today s quarter- final match against the Latvians. DAN HAMHUIS: Called Hammer by his Vancouver teammates, Hamhuis has been more like a nail in Sochi, as in nailed to the bench. He made the team as a fourth- pairing defenceman and remains there. Hamhuis hasn t been a factor and doesn t figure to be in the playoff round either. He played sparingly in his two appearances 9: 52 and then 3: 58 and was scratched for the Austria game. RYAN KESLER: As Team USA s first- line centre, Kesler has had top wingers on his flanks throughout the tournament and is expected to skate with Patrick Kane and Zach Parise in Wednesday s quarterfinal against the Czechs. He has collected a goal and an assist, has five shots on goal and is plus- 4. DANIEL SEDIN: In a dreadful 19- game goal drought when he departed for Sochi, Daniel hasn t been able to score against the Czechs, Swiss or Latvians in his

4 first three outings in Sochi. He does have three assists and four shots on goal while averaging nearly 20 minutes per game. ALEX EDLER: After completing his IIHF suspension from last season s world championship, Edler appeared in just one preliminary game, the 5-3 victory over Latvia. Edler had a nice performance with a goal and an assist and was plus- 1 in 17: 03 of ice time. The plus must have been pleasant for him after 15 consecutive NHL games where he was either a minus, or even. YANNICK WEBER and RAPHAEL DIAZ: The Swiss scored only three goals in their four games and neither Canuck defenceman figured in the scoring. Weber had 10 shots on goal in the tournament and was an even player while Diaz put six shots on goal and was also even. Sweden blank Slovenia to advance to hockey semis The Associated Press The Globe and Mail February 19, 2014 Henrik Lundqvist made 19 saves for his second shutout of the Sochi Games and Carl Hagelin scored twice, helping Sweden rout upstart Slovenia 5-0 Wednesday to advance into Olympic hockey semifinals. The 2006 Olympic champions will face the winner of the Russia-Finland game Friday for a spot in the gold-medal game. Sweden is the only team to win all four of its games in regulation in what has been quite a feat without Henrik Zetterberg, Daniel Sedin and Johan Franzen. The short-handed Swedes ended a feel-good story, eliminating Slovenia in its first Olympic hockey tournament. Alexander Steen broke a scoreless tie 18:50 into the game. After a scoreless second, Daniel Sedin, Loui Eriksson and Hagelin broke the game open with four goals in the third period. Hagelin shook off a hit to the head, a break for a team already missing three top-line forwards. Hagelin skated off the ice went to the bench in a daze with a busted-up lip after Slovenia s Sabahudin Kovacevic landed his left shoulder on his head midway through the game. Kovacevic was suspended for a game earlier in the tournament for hitting Slovakia s Tomas Kopecky in the head with his left elbow. Sweden probably couldn t afford to lose another player up front. Zetterberg, the team s captain, pulled out of the tournament after playing in one game because of a herniated disk. Henrik Sedin didn t make the trip to play with his twin, Daniel, because of a rib injury. Franzen was ruled out because of a concussion.

5 Even without those standouts, the smooth-skating, sweet-passing Swedes have a shot to beat anyone in the best-on-best tournament in part because of the player they have between the pipes. Lundqvist, who also shut out Switzerland in the preliminary round, won the 2012 Vezina Trophy as the NHL s top goaltender. He lifted the Swedes to gold at the Turin Games eight years ago. He wasn t tested much in the quarterfinals by Slovenia, a team that no one thought would even be here a little more than a year ago. Slovenia won two games in its first Olympic hockey tournament. It earned a spot in the 12- nation tournament by beating Belarus, Ukraine and Denmark in last year s qualification tournament. The team has only one NHL player, Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings, and it is coached by his father, Matjaz. Sweden has 23 players from the NHL, not counting Zetterberg, one of six Detroit Red Wings on the team. Early in the lopsided game, Slovenia was competitive and looked as if it belonged on the ice with a traditional power. It weathered an early storm of shots and started to control the puck and create chances of its own, but Lundqvist snagged or blocked everything.

BRAD ZIEMER vancouversun. com Twitter. com/ bradziemer

BRAD ZIEMER vancouversun. com Twitter. com/ bradziemer 21 Feb 2014 The Vancouver Sun BRAD ZIEMER bziemer@ vancouversun. com Twitter. com/ bradziemer VANCOUVER SUN Time to bring back the swagger Tortorella spends break looking for ways to restore team s level