John Tortorella has his Vegas Golden Knights three wins away from claiming hockey’s ultimate prize.
After the Golden Knights defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 5-4 in Monday’s Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, the team is one step closer to claiming the second championship of their nine-season history.
Tortorella took over the Golden Knights from former head coach Bruce Cassidy on March 29 with just eight games remaining in the regular season.
Vegas then went 7-0-1 to finish the season to claim first place in the Pacific Division and build momentum for the playoffs.
Tortorella then led the Golden Knights past the Utah Mammoth and Anaheim Ducks in the first two rounds, defeating them in six games each. Then Vegas put the pedal to the metal by sweeping away the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Final to put themselves in a position for a championship.
A series win over the Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup Final will give Tortorella a place in NHL coaching history.
The 67-year-old coach would become only the fourth coach in NHL history to win a Stanley Cup championship with two different teams, joining Hall of Fame bench bosses Tommy Gorman, Dick Irvin Sr., and Scotty Bowman.
Gorman is the only coach to win back-to-back Stanley Cups with two different teams, leading the Chicago Black Hawks to a championship in 1934 then jumping over to the Montreal Maroons in 1935 to win the title.
Irvin is known as a legendary coach for the Montreal Canadiens, helping the team win Stanley Cup titles in 1944, 1946, and 1953 during his 15 seasons at the helm. Prior to his time in Montreal, Irvin coached the Toronto Maple Leafs for nine seasons and led the Maple Leafs to a championship in 1932, the year Maple Leaf Gardens opened.
Bowman is the most recent and most celebrated of the three coaches. He is the NHL’s all-time winningest coach with 1,244 wins, and his nine Stanley Cups are the most of any coach.
He is the only coach to win Stanley Cups with three different teams, winning five with the Canadiens (1973, 1976-1979), two with the Pittsburgh Penguins (1991, 1992), and three with the Detroit Red Wings (1997, 1998, 2002).
Tortorella will have a different story than those three coaches, with his only other Stanley Cup victory coming in 2004 with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Prior to his time in Vegas, the closest he came to returning to the final was in 2012 where his New York Rangers lost in the Eastern Conference Final in six games to the New Jersey Devils.
The 22-year difference between Cup victories would be the longest of any NHL coach in the league’s history.
There have been two other coaches who have come close to joining the group Gorman, Irvin, and Bowman, with the most recent coming 10 years ago.
Peter Laviolette helped the Hurricanes to the franchise’s first Stanley Cup title in 2006 and then helped the Philadelphia Flyers (2010) and Nashville Predators (2016) reach the final but couldn’t come out on top.
Legendary coach Mike Keenan is known for helping the Rangers end a 54-year Stanley Cup drought when they won in 1994. Prior to that victory, he also helped the Philadelphia Flyers and Blackhawks to the final in 1987 and 1992, respectively but ended up falling both times.
For his part, Tortorella is completely focused on the here and now and not thinking about his previous experiences or NHL history.
“We’re getting ready for the final here,” Tortorella told reporters during Stanley Cup media day on Monday. “The nostalgia [around the event] and all that stuff, I’m not going to go there.”
The Stanley Cup Final continues on Thursday from Raleigh, N.C. as the Hurricanes try to even up the series with the Golden Knights in Game 2.
