It's not quite true that John Tortorella, at 66 years old and on his fifth NHL head-coaching job, couldn't learn any new tricks.
After all, he did pull off the unusual feat of essentially getting himself fired.
After two games in which the Philadelphia Flyers gave up 14 combined goals, and amid a stretch of 11 losses in 12 contests, Tortorella was asked if, perhaps, his style was not all that conducive to leading a young roster.
"I'm not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season, where we're at right now," the coach said.
Soon thereafter, he was the former coach. General manager Daniel Briere had little choice: When your coach says he has no interest in adapting to the job at hand, you agree on a payout and part ways.
Why it took three seasons to reach this conclusion is a bit of a mystery, just like the decision to join forces in the first place. Tortorella's greatest success came with the Tampa Bay Lightning, the team with which he won a Stanley Cup two decades ago. His best years with the New York Rangers and Columbus Blue Jackets came with rosters boasting plenty of talent. And yet he was hired to take over a 25-win team that was almost certainly going to be a project.
Why did Tortorella take the job if he didn't want to coach that kind of season? And why did the Flyers want him?
It sounds trite, but there's not much more of an explanation than it happened because he was a familiar face and name. The NHL coach-recycling system is nothing if not reliable.
Shortly after the news broke that Tortorella was out, possible replacement names were floated by NHL insiders. Rick Tocchet. Joel Quenneville. Gerard Gallant. Any one of those candidates might do a fine job, but all three are in their 60s. (Tocchet is also currently the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks, which would seem to make his candidacy somewhat conditional.)
Maybe this shouldn't be surprising in a season in which the Buffalo Sabres turned to 64-year-old Lindy Ruff to take over the head coaching duties, a dozen years after he led what counts as their era of modern glory. But why do big-league teams seemingly have so much trouble hiring from outside the former-NHL-head-coach ranks? (Ruff, it is also worth noting at this point, has steered the Sabres straight into the basement, next to the Flyers.)
It's not as though there are no other places where talented hockey coaches can be discovered. Major junior hockey, the NCAA, the minor professional leagues - dozens of teams have coaches who display the skills and abilities that should translate to the elite professional level. And it's not as though none of those coaches ever get the call: the most recent examples are Spencer Carbery in Washington, who is 43, and 37-year-old Ryan Warsofsky in San Jose. Jared Bednar rose through the ranks to become the coach of the Colorado Avalanche when he was 44, and he's now the winningest coach in franchise history. Still, the preferred route is always to bring in a former NHL coach, often one with several former stops, to do the job.
In the NBA and NFL, meanwhile, there's been a noticeable movement toward putting teams in the hands of younger, less experienced head coaches. The NBA has five coaches who are 40 or younger, and several more who are some distance from their 50s. Sean McVay's success with the Los Angeles Rams, the team with which he became head coach at 30 and won a Super Bowl at 35, has caused more teams to turn the demanding job over to guys in their 30s and early 40s.
In both leagues - and, theoretically, the NHL - finding new talent for the coaching ranks has two effects. The first is that younger coaches are more likely to embrace modern developments within the game. The second is that they're more likely to be able to relate to a new generation of athletes. Some fans will roll their eyes at the latter point and long for the tough-as-nails type - the Tortorella type - but it's hardly radical to suggest that a guy in his mid-60s might not be all that well-suited to building a relationship with a couple of newly drafted 20-year-olds.
Maybe this will be the cycle during which NHL teams start to look further afield. There are three permanent openings now, in Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia, and there will probably be a couple more once the season ends. Will someone like David Carle, the 35-year-old coach at the University of Denver, get a shot? It seems just as likely that Tortorella will be rumored as a candidate to take over the Bruins or Blackhawks.
Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.
