John Tortorella's time in New York has come to an end. New York Rangers' general manager Glen Sather announced Wednesday that the team had decided to end its relationship with the head coach after another early playoff exit.
Tortorella was the Rangers' coach since 2009 and guided them to the playoffs in three of his four seasons; he missed the postseason in 2010. Tortorella coached the team for 319 regular season games and put up a record of 171-118-1-29. His best season came in 2011-12 when he led the team to the top spot in the Eastern Conference. Unfortunately, he never got the team past the Eastern Conference finals. This season, the Rangers finished sixth in the Eastern Conference and were eliminated in five games by the Boston Bruins in the semifinals.
"Our goal is to win the Stanley Cup, and I feel this is a decision that had to be made," Sather said. "As far as John is concerned, he was a little bit shocked, but he's a gentleman and he took it very well."
The manager would not reveal who would be Tortorella's replacement.
"We're going to put some interviews together with a number of different people and try to find the best candidate that's going to serve the needs of the New York Rangers," Sather said. "I'm sure we're going to find the right person and we're going to move in the right direction. We'll find the right guy."
Tortorella was a controversial figure during his tenure. He had numerous confrontations with the press and had the tendency to call out his players. In recent weeks he told reporters that forward Carl Hagelin played poorly on the power play. Sather would not specify if Tortorella's behavior was the reason for his dismissal.
"There isn't one specific reason or incident that brought this about," Sather said. "It is something that happened and that has occurred, but there isn't one specific reason that it occurred."