Tortorella Returns to New York

If anybody thinks that the Canucks coach will be booed in his return to Madison Square Garden today, you would be so wrong. Expect him to be warmly received.

Tortorella had seemed to have lost his players last season with the Rangers but I guess he didn't lose any warm feelings with the fans. His confrontational style played well with the fans of New York and how he always held his players accountable for the performance on the ice. This type of style will be what wins him over with Rangers fans tonight.

Unfortunately, the reason that got him kicked out last season was because the players rebelled against his totalitarian regime. They didn't like how he always blamed them for their poor performance and his drill sergeant attitude was what really turned players off. Plus, those tactics didn't work against the Boston Bruins in the playoffs when they were eliminated in 5 games.

He did, however, get results in the regular season while with the Rangers. He's had winning percentages above .500 in his tenure there. His teams have registered points in 63.4% of the games that they have played. And in the 2012 season, they made a quality playoff run and might have reached the Stanley Cup if they had some better puck luck against the Devils.

He has learned his lesson since being fired. He is less frequent in bashing his players for poor performance and has more of a cordial relationship with Vancouver media than he did with the New York media. Then again, the New York media tends to scrutinize everything and make everything a story. This is, he is still Tortorella, so if things aren't well, he'll go off like a volcano.

I would expect him to be welcomed warmly by Rangers fans, but not by the players. His style was what they didn't like in the first place, so don't expect the players to welcome him back warmly. But with that in mind, Tortorella did help the Rangers in my entire time there so anything sort of a small applause would not be acceptable. And the thing is, right now, the Canucks have to start playing better and that starts against a Rangers team that has been resurging as of a couple weeks, so with that in mind, Tortorella's going to have to be a genius in figuring out how to get pucks past Lundqvist and have his goaltenders and defenders play a bit better.