The Vegas Golden Knights sent shockwaves through the National Hockey League on March 29 when they fired head coach Bruce Cassidy and replaced him with John Tortorella.
At the time, the Golden Knights were clinging to the third spot in the Pacific Division and had dropped six of their past seven games. Now under the fiery Tortorella, the Golden Knights (39-26-17) have clinched a second-straight Pacific Division title and are one of the league’s hottest teams heading into their postseason matchup against the Utah Mammoth.
The Golden Knights have a 7-0-1 record since Tortorella took over behind the bench.
“We finished hard. We’ve been to our game ever since ‘Torts’ came in,” Vegas defenceman Shea Theodore said following Wednesday’s division-clinching win over the Seattle Kraken. “Definitely revamped a couple of things, and obviously, we like where we’re at.
“The way we finished the season. That’s how you want to feel going into the playoffs. You want to be confident about your game. We had a lot of big goals down the stretch, a lot of big saves, and that’s how you want to play going into playoffs.”
“We were on top there for a while for a lot of the season,” defenceman Brayden McNabb said. “Then we’re in third, flirting with a wild card. We found our game at the right time and won the division. That’s what we wanted to do, and we did it.”
The Golden Knights’ individual stars have found their game since the coaching change. Winger Mitch Marner recorded nine points in eight games after Tortorella’s hiring, while Jack Eichel added two goals and 12 points over that span.
As a club, the Golden Knights averaged 3.1 goals per game but allowed 3.2 per contest and carried a negative goal differential under Cassidy. In the eight games under Tortorella, Vegas scored 4.1 goals per contest while allowing only 2.0 for a plus-17 goal differential.
“The way we’ve been playing more and more consistently is the way we want to play,” Tortorella said. “It’s certainly nothing elaborate. It’s just about playing fast and it’s about playing forward. We want to be aggressive. We want to be up the ice. We want to take time and space in all three zones. It’s not a crazy formula by any means; it’s a mindset, and it’s hard. It’s a lot of hard work.”
“We have high expectations, and we try to live that every day. Through the organization, the players, everyone tries to live up to that level. Every day you’re at the rink, we don’t accept losing, and I think the last couple of weeks are a good testament to that,” said forward Reilly Smith, who had two goals and three points on Wednesday.
After a pair of early playoff exits the Golden Knights will try to carry their late-season momentum into the postseason and make another deep playoff run following their Stanley Cup victory in 2022-23.
