Tortorella Proves Why He’s No Longer an NHL Coach, Calls Out McDavid

[JR Ewing]

14 minutes ago, yave1964 said:

  The thing is, can anyone actually say that he is wrong? That until McDavd starts playing a 200 foot game and winning a few rounds or even a cup can anyone say that he cannot be better? I remember when Bowman took over in Detroit and Yzerman went from 140 points as a selfish one way player and became THE Captain scoring 80 points a year but playing in any and all situations, it was not until that happened that the Wings won.

 

After the Oilers were bounced by the Hawks two years ago, McDavid went to the coaching staff and asked them to be brutally honest with him re: his defensive game, with the goal of working towards becoming a more complete player than he was at that point. He took their advice, adjusted how he played. Instead of hovering in the defensive and flying out, looking for a pass, he comes all the way back to help and has found that it enabled him to get the puck earlier and carry with more speed: an offensive improvement from helping more in his own end. He's not the best defensive centre in the league, and he's not blocking shots (why would you want him to?) but he's most definitely improved tremendously.

 

It was mentioned before, but:

 

 

Basically, Torts' reasoning in the ESPN top players bit was silly, and you can tell that he hasn't even seen McDavid play since before the lockout, when McDavid supplicated himself to the Oilers coaching staff.