Goal Line Report
What Torts Needs to do to be Successful
by Patrick Hoffman on 08/18/10 at 08:00 AM ET
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In his first season and a half, New York Rangers’ head coach John Tortorella hasn’t exactly won the hearts of Blueshirt fans.
Last season, the team struggled to score goals, disappeared on many nights and didn’t make the playoffs. The season before, Torts took out Sean Avery in a key playoff game and also got himself suspended one, which ended up flustering the Blueshirts and caused them to blow a 3-1 series lead to the Washington Capitals.
This season, it’s a clean slate and in order for the head coach to get the fans on his side, he should do the following:
- Establish Lines: More often than not, Torts mixed and matched the lines last season, desperately trying to find a unit that would click. Well, you can’t do that if you keep changing guys and moving them around. Give them a chance to gel and see what they can do.
Play the Youngsters: When the team calls up someone from Hartford, Torts needs to give them a chance to play rather than play them just two or three shifts. The only way these guys are going to grow is if they get ice time and adapt to the NHL game.
Rest Lundqvist: The team now has a solid backup in Martin Biron. As such, there is no reason why Henrik Lundqvist should play between 70-75 games. We know that Torts said he sees Biron playing between 15-20 games so Ranger fans need to hope that he sticks to it.
There is probably a heckuva lot more he can do to be successful so I am leaving that to you folks to come up with a few more.
Again, the question is what does Tortorella need to do this season to be successful?
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Tags: John+Tortorella, New+York+Rangers,
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About Goal Line Report
Patrick has a tremendous passion for hockey. Besides covering the Rangers and the NHL for Kukla’s Korner, you can also find Patrick’s work over at Sportsnet.ca, The Red Light District Hockey Blog, NHL Home Ice, and Liam Maguire’s Ultimate Hockey web site.
Prior to writing for the above mentioned outlets, you could find Patrick’s musings at hockey web sites/outlets such as TheHockeyNews.com, TheFourthPeriod.com, Spector’s Hockey, Hokeja Vestnesis, Blueshirt Bulletin, SNYRangersBlog.com and many more.
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