John Tortorella: "I Deserved To Get Fired"

John Tortorella lasted just one season in Vancouver—a disastrous tailspin of a season so increasingly toxic, there's now not a single person on earth willing to deny that he had to go. Torts has rejoined society, sounding refreshed and sanguine in a Tampa Bay radio appearance earlier today, and he's realistic about how it went down.

"We had a great first half. But I don't think I did the job for the team the second half with our consistency and I think that's what cost me my job. We couldn't stop the losing streaks. We needed to win a couple of games within those areas. And quite honestly, I deserved to get fired after that second half of the year."

If you catch him in the right mood (i.e. if he's not disproportionately mad about something), Tortorella's an insightful, honest guy. That's him here, as he weighs in what he thinks the role of analytics should be, and expresses genuine-sounding regret over trying to bust his way into the Flames' dressing room to fight Bob Hartley.

"I think you mature along the way...I know I make my own bed in some of these different things that happened. You're talking to a guy who went down a hallway after another coach last year, which was so across the line and so embarrassing to my organization and my team.

"But it's the emotion. You live and die by the sword a little bit there. I think I've controlled myself more. I really worked at that last year in Vancouver. That was really one of the bad spots of my season when I did that."

So what's Tortorella up to these days?

What do you think makes up the TORTS stat? Probably something like blocked shots + players alienated/combative press conferences.