COLUMBUS, Ohio — A collection of notes, insights, ruminations and did-you-knows gathered throughout the week that was for the Blue Jackets:
Item #1: Gallant would welcome return
The Blue Jackets spent part of last week paring the list of coaching candidates to replace John Tortorella. One name expected to survive the initial whittling will have special meaning in Columbus.
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Gerard Gallant has established himself as one of the top coaches in the NHL, winning the Jack Adams Trophy with the Vegas Golden Knights when he coached them to the Stanley Cup Final in 2018, their first season as an expansion franchise.
The feeling across the league is that Gallant — as good a guy as you’ll find in hockey — deserved a better fate than to be fired in the middle of the third season in his last two NHL gigs, Vegas and Florida.
Gallant has already interviewed with the New York Rangers. He sat with new Rangers general manager Chris Drury in New York late last week before flying to Riga, Latvia, where he’ll coach Team Canada in the IIHF World Championships.
The Blue Jackets and expansion Seattle also are expected to contact Gallant for an interview, but it’s the Columbus conversation that would tug at Gallant’s emotions. There’s a chance for redemption here.
Gallant was with the Blue Jackets in their first seven seasons in Columbus, including three as head coach. Those were incredibly turbulent seasons, and Gallant was caught in an almost impossible situation — the Blue Jackets’ roster was woefully undertalented, plus he was caught in the awkward position of working for his lifelong friend, then-Blue Jackets president, general manager and carnival barker, Doug MacLean.
“I was a young coach then,” Gallant said. “I’m a different coach now.
“I’ve done a good job the last six years (with Florida and Vegas). I’ve been fired twice, and that’s disappointing and frustrating, but I think when people look at my record they’d say, ‘You know what? He did a pretty good job.'”
Gallant had an 11-year NHL career as a rough-and-tumble winger with Detroit (nine seasons) and Tampa Bay (two). He’s what NHL GMs are looking for these days, a coach who can relate to players but also hold them accountable.
That’s been his reputation in Florida and Vegas: firm but fair. In 399 games with the two franchises — a chronically troubled franchise and an expansion team, respectively — Gallant went 214-140-45, a .593 points percentage.
“I’m tough, but I’m fair … that’s the way I look at myself, anyway,” Gallant said. “Some people call me a players’ coach, and you hear people say, ‘We don’t need a players’ coach.’ Well, I’m a hard-ass, too, when I need to be, when the situation calls for it.
“I try to get my players to play hard and have fun coming to the rink, enjoy it. You need one to have the other, right?”
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Getting fired by the Blue Jackets early in the 2006-07 season was exactly what Gallant needed, ultimately. The organization was in chaos back then, an Exxon Valdez of a sports franchise.
Midway through the Blue Jackets’ third season, MacLean fired Dave King as coach and stepped behind the bench, adding “coach” to his title, which already included club president and general manager.
One year later, on Jan. 1, 2004, after a brutal run with MacLean as coach (24-43-12), Gallant, then 40 years old, was promoted to interim coach. He had the interim tag lifted six months later.
“When you get your first chance, are you ready?” Gallant said. “You think you’re ready, but really it’s a big challenge when you’re an expansion team, three and a half years into it. We weren’t that good a team.
“Did I think I made mistakes back then? No. But when you look back at it now, would you do things differently? Yeah, and I think more confidence is the biggest thing.”
MacLean lorded over every aspect of the organization. Gallant did not appear to have the autonomy to make roster decisions and lineup decisions like most coaches need to do their jobs properly.
Early in the 2006-07 season, Blue Jackets majority owner John H. McConnell ordered MacLean to fire Gallant after a 5-9-1 start to the season. Two weeks later, Ken Hitchcock was hired against MacLean’s wishes. MacLean was fired the following spring.
From Columbus, Gallant went back to junior hockey to get the head coaching experience he so badly needed. He led Saint John to an incredible 161-34-9 record in three seasons before getting back into the NHL as an assistant with Montreal in 2012-13.
The Panthers hired him two years later, and the rest is history.
“My second time around, in Florida, I was more confident,” Gallant said. “When I gave the guys a day off, it was the right call. I trusted it, you know? I had confidence in what I was doing. The first time around you’re worried about what the players are going to think, what management is going to think.
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“Once you get by that, you just make your decisions. They’re not all going to be right, of course, but you want as many as possible to be right.”
Gallant, now 57, has maintained a cluster of friends in Columbus. Each time he’s come back to Nationwide Arena, with Vegas or Florida, “10-15 guys show up, a group of friends I got to know there.”
Maybe they can be neighbors again.
“We loved it in Columbus,” Gallant said. “We had seven years there, and it was great. Our kids grew up with middle school and high school there, and they loved it. Some of their best friends they met there, too.
“When I got fired, I understood it. Doug was one of my best friends. He had to fire me, and that’s fine, it’s all part of the game. You learn from it and you go work for your next opportunity. I have nothing bad to say about days in Columbus, and I never will. It was all perfect, really.”
Item #2: Tortorella nearly quit after 2019-20
Tortorella informed the Blue Jackets in late April that he was ready to move on from the organization after six seasons behind the bench. It became official, announced as a mutual parting of ways, last Monday.
The Athletic confirmed this week, however, that Tortorella tried to step down last offseason after the Blue Jackets were bounced from the bubble in Toronto following a qualifying-round win over Toronto and a first-round playoff loss to Tampa Bay. The veteran coach was reading the room and reading the tea leaves, realizing the direction of the club was heading was nothing close to what he thought they were building just two years earlier.
Two issues brought Tortorella back behind the bench for the final year of his contract, however.
- The Blue Jackets wouldn’t fire him, which is to say they weren’t going to pay him the $2.5 million (per his contract) if he wasn’t coaching. They’d find other work for him to do within the organization for the final year, but at a lesser rate than $2.5 million. Well, the coach is a coach; that’s what he does. The coach is also human, so the money was important.
- Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno had lunch with Tortorella, during which he urged the coach to return for one last season to “finish what we started” after four straight playoff berths with the same cluster of veteran players. Tortorella may have a flammable temper, but he’s an old softy for personal appeals, and Foligno’s pitch worked.
It’s only fair to wonder how many regrets there were throughout this season, which was an awful one for the Blue Jackets.
Tortorella is looking for his next coaching job, GM Jarmo Kekalainen is looking for a new coach, and Foligno is in Toronto, getting ready to play for the Maple Leafs in the postseason.
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Item #3: Fare thee well, Brad Shaw
Many across the NHL were surprised to learn this week that assistant coach Brad Shaw, after five seasons working with the defensemen and the penalty kill in Columbus, wouldn’t get so much as an interview with the Blue Jackets to replace Tortorella.
If the Jackets were making a clean break and bringing in an entirely new staff, that’d be one thing. But when it became known that assistant Brad Larsen was getting an interview, the snub of Shaw became that much more apparent.
I just wanted to thank all of the CBJ fans for their unwavering support these past 5 years. We have shared some memorable moments, from 10-0 vs Montreal, to the 16 game win streak. But none will compare to the sweep of Tampa👍Thanks for being behind us all the way #5thline
— Brad Shaw (@shawkeycoach) May 14, 2021
Shaw, 57, has been one of the league’s most highly regarded assistant coaches over the last 15 seasons, and he likely won’t be out of work long. One NHL club contacted him last week just hours after the Blue Jackets announced he wouldn’t be back.
Other than a 40-game stint (18-18-4) with the New York Islanders in 2005-06 — he was promoted from assistant after Steve Stirling was fired — Shaw’s goal of being an NHL head coach has proven elusive.
Shaw was beginning the arduous task of moving last week when contacted by The Athletic.
“What will I remember most about Columbus?” Shaw said, repeating a question. “I’m not sure there’s a better fan base. I know everybody says that when they leave, but it’s true, and I’d tell anybody that.
“We were able to do some really unique and memorable things. From the 10-0 game vs. Montreal (Nov. 4, 2016) to the 16-game winning streak (that season), and of course the ultimate great moment was the sweep vs. Tampa Bay (in 2019).
“I don’t think anybody involved in that series will ever forget that feeling and the noise when the first empty-net goal went in (vs. the Lightning in Game 4) and we realized we were going to do it. We turned the hockey world upside down for seven days, and nobody involved will ever forget it.
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“The way we got through the rough spots was the unwavering support of the fans. Here, it’s just unbelievable how loud they can be, how faithful they are. It honestly gets the players through the ups and downs.”
Snacks
• The Blue Jackets told defenseman Michael Del Zotto in his exit interview that they were interested in re-signing him for next season and possibly beyond. That’s music to the ears of Del Zotto, who has changed teams five times in three seasons. He’d love to put down roots in Columbus, he said, if the contract offer is in the ballpark.
• Del Zotto made the NHL minimum $700,000 this season and was one of the Blue Jackets’ better defensemen. He totaled 4-9-13 in 53 games, with a plus-5 rating on a club that was outscored by 50 goals.
• There’s still a reason to watch the NHL standings. If Vancouver gets one point in its remaining three games — beginning Sunday night against Calgary — it will push the Blue Jackets down to 28th in the overall standings, fourth from the bottom. That will give them the fifth-best chance in the NHL’s draft lottery after expansion Seattle is slotted into the third spot. The lottery is scheduled for June 2.
• AHL Cleveland completed its season Saturday with a 4-1 loss to Grand Rapids. Defenseman Gavin Bayreuther scored the only goal, while goaltender Daniil Tarasov stopped 41 of 43 shots, 20 in the second period.
• Tarasov made six AHL starts after arriving from the KHL. He was 4-2-0 with a 3.16 goals-against average and a .896 save percentage.
• Center Josh Dunne played 14 games for Clarkson University this season, totaling 2-3-5. He played 15 games as a professional with AHL Cleveland, totaling 8-2-10. Before Saturday’s finale, he’d scored eight goals in eight games on 28 shots, a stunning — and unsustainable — 28.6 percent.
• AHL Cleveland defenseman Ole Bjorgvik-Holm has headed to Riga, Latvia. to play for Norway in the IIHF World Championships. Bjorgvik-Holm, a fifth-round pick (No. 145 overall) in the 2020 draft, had 1-4-5 in 16 games with the Monsters, his first pro season.
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• Blue Jackets forward Emil Bemstrom would have played for Sweden in the Worlds, but decided to take it easy on his still-tender ankle.
• One player on why even more NHLers than usual were skipping the IIHF World Championships, which will be staged in a bubble similar to the NHL playoffs one year ago: “Guys are just bubbled out and Zoomed out. And I don’t blame them.”
(Photo of Gerard Gallant in 2019: Glenn James / NHLI via Getty Images)
