John Tortorella Once Asked if Michigan Attempts were Good for the Game of Hockey
Matvei Michkov attempted a Michigan in Boston the other night, which drew the ire of Scott Hartnell on the postgame show. If you missed the clip, Hartsy loosely called the decision “stupid” while explaining that the better option would be to look for a teammate and/or put the puck in front of the net.
Apropos, a reader sent over some John Tortorella clips from a few years ago.
Not sure if casual Philly sports fans remember this, but Torts got ripped for criticizing an amazing goal scored by Sonny Milano, in which Trevor Zegras flipped the puck over the net for his Anaheim teammate to bat it in. Torts did the curmudgeon routine and whined about it:
John Tortorella gives his thoughts on the Zegras/Milano goal 😬. Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/91yImY4cBx
— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) December 11, 2021
In response to the backlash, Torts later said this (from Thomas Williams at Yahoo Sports) –
“I live under a rock. I didn’t realize all of this (backlash) was going on after the show. A coach in the league sent me an article yesterday and I read the article. And I saw what (Zegras) was going through as far as the questions that were being asked of him. My heart dropped, because the furthest thing from my mind was criticizing this kid. That was a tremendously skilled play by a tremendously skilled player – both him and Sonny (Milano). My thoughts were ‘is it a hockey play?’ And we can debate that all through here, agree or disagree, I’m not saying what is right or wrong.”
“I hope he does it again quite honestly. You don’t have to agree with it and I stick with my thoughts as far as I think it is, but I wish him nothing but the best.”
So what’s the point of bringing this up? Well, it doesn’t really matter what Scott Hartnell and Al Morganti think of Michigan attempts, but Torts’ opinion does matter. Now he’s got a super-skilled guy trying the same thing, and so far he has not said anything negative about what Michkov is doing. I am not sure the beats have even asked him about it, but he certainly hasn’t offered any kind of unsolicited opinion on Matvei Michigan. Perhaps the pushback he got a few years ago changed his mind, and if it did, then it’s probably beneficial for Michkov and the Flyers if you’re one of those people who thinks that creative players need the freedom to be creative. If Michkov goes out there and tries 300 Michigans in a row, and hits on 0 of them, then you tell the kid to cool it, and Torts is justified in stepping in to shut it down. But Torts has seemed restrained so far, and is allowing Michkov to play his game, and maybe that would not have been the case if this was 2021 instead of 2024.