Tortorella could replicate feat of Robinson with Cup champ Devils in 2000

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Larry Robinson can appreciate better than anyone the job John Tortorella has done with the Vegas Golden Knights the past 2 1/2 months. 

Robinson, who coached the New Jersey Devils to the Stanley Cup in 2000 after taking over with eight games remaining in the regular season, has been impressed watching Tortorella guide the Golden Knights to Stanley Cup Final against the Carolina Hurricanes after replacing Bruce Cassidy as coach with eight regular-season games left.

Tortorella might face his toughest challenge now, however, with Vegas trailing 3-2 in the best-of-7 series, following a 4-2 loss in Game 5 at Carolina on Thursday, and facing elimination in Game 6 at home Sunday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, SN, TVAS, CBC).

“He's done a pretty masterful job back there,” Robinson said. “It's kind of strange to see him so calm behind that bench, but he's wonderful.”

Robinson quickly points out, “I think his job was a lot tougher,” because Tortorella hadn’t worked for the Golden Knights before he was hired on March 29. Robinson was in his second stint as an assistant with New Jersey when general manager Lou Lamoriello asked him to take over for Robbie Ftorek.

Robinson had a similar short runway, though, to get the Devils back on track before the Stanley Cup Playoffs. New Jersey was in first place in Eastern Conference at the time, but was 5-9-2 in its previous 16 games, including a 5-0 home loss to Carolina in what turned out to be Ftorek’s final game.

“We were in a rut,” said Scott Gomez, a forward who won the Calder Trophy voted as the NHL’s top rookie that season. “We were in first place for a long time there and then we just went on a slide, and it just wasn't going anywhere. But in my wildest dreams I did not even think that could happen.”

Though it was unorthodox for a first-place team to fire its coach that late in the season, Lamoriello felt compelled to make a change because he believed the Devils were talented enough to win the Stanley Cup, with the core of their 1995 championship team mostly intact, but their play was trending in the wrong direction. 

“I thought we had the ingredients and all of that, but I didn't think it was going to happen," Lamoriello said. "I didn't feel it. And when you feel that you have a team that has the potential to win and the way things are going you don't feel that'll happen, you can wait and see if it changes or you can make the change and put the responsibility on yourself if it doesn't happen.”

In that way, Lamoriello can empathize with Golden Knights president of hockey operations George McPhee and GM Kelly McCrimmom. Vegas also has a veteran team with much of the core from its 2023 Stanley Cup team remaining but was playing below expectations and on a 4-10-2 slide before bringing in Tortorella to replace Cassidy. 

“I know that it's not an easy decision, but I’m sure that went through their mind because they've won,” Lamoriello said. “They knew how to win, and they had a core similar there that had won. So in their mind, they had a plan that someone was available to come in, in this case John, who had what they thought maybe the team needed.”

The difference for Lamoriello was he didn’t have to look outside the organization to find the coach he thought New Jersey needed. Robinson was revered, a six-time Stanley Cup winner as a defenseman with the Montreal Canadiens who added another Cup ring as an assistant with the Devils in 1995. He also had four seasons of experience as an NHL head coach with the Los Angeles Kings from 1995-99 before returning to New Jersey as an assistant.

“It was not only are we changing coaches, but we're bringing in a guy who doesn't have enough fingers for the Stanley Cup rings he's won,” longtime Devils defenseman Ken Daneyko said. “We had such respect for him back in '95 as an assistant. And Larry would never interfere. He was such a loyal guy that he would never want to ever undercut Robbie. 

“So Larry had no idea and didn't want this to happen.”

Robinson said “surprised” was not a sufficient word to describe his reaction when Lamoriello called to ask him to replace Ftorek.

“Stunned would have been a better word,” he said. “And thank God I was parked in my car, and I wasn't driving because I probably would've hit something.”

Many of the players were on the team bus -- they traveled to play the New York Islanders the next day -- when they found out about the change. 

“It was unusual,” said Martin Brodeur, the Devils Hockey Hall of Fame goalie. “It was like, ‘All right, Robbie's gone and now it's Larry who is going to coach this team.’  It was not really somebody from the outside, but it still was just shocking.”

Robinson said he didn’t need to change a lot, “because Robbie had a really good base there for me to work with.” 

He also had a loaded roster to work with, beginning with 1995 returnees Brodeur, Daneyko, Hall of Fame defensemen Scott Stevens and Scott Niedermayer and forwards Bobby Holik and Sergei Brylin, supplemented by newcomers such as forwards Jason Arnott, Patrik Elias and Petr Sykora and four rookies -- Gomez, forward John Madden and defensemen Brian Rafalski and Colin White.

New Jersey had also strengthened the roster during the season by reacquiring forward Claude Lemieux, the 1995 Conn Smythe Trophy winner as the most valuable player in the playoffs, from the Colorado Avalanche and adding forward Alexander Mogilny in a trade with the Vancouver Canucks and defenseman Vladimir Malakhov in a trade with the Canadiens. 

“We had all the ingredients to win,” Brodeur said.  

Robinson made some minor tweaks to the Devils defensive-zone coverage, but his most significant changes were with his approach to the players. One was eliminating the harder standard with which Ftorek treated young players.

“I think he did it on purpose to get the rookies to work harder and so on and so forth,” Robinson said. “I treated everybody as equal. I don't care if you’re a first-year player or second-year player or you've been around for 10 years.”

The second change was empowering Stevens as captain after there had been some questions from outsiders about New Jersey's locker room leadership in the seasons since winning the Cup in 1995. Emboldened by Robinson, Stevens set the tone with his physical play throughout the 2000 playoffs and won the Conn Smythe Trophy, voted as most valuable player in the postseason.

“I made sure that, 'You know that Scotty is the captain and there’s a reason that he’s the captain,' ” Robinson said. “He's our leader, and he made guys accountable in practice, he made guys accountable in the game.”

Tortorella, who coached the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Stanley Cup in 2004, also has talked about not changing much when he took over for Cassidy. Robinson can see Tortorella’s influence, though, with how he has related to the players.

“Bruce had a pretty solid way of playing,” Robinson said. “I think all that ‘Torts’ had to do was just to maybe to change probably a little bit of the atmosphere maybe in the dressing room and the way that guys felt about each other. From hearing the conversations, it's more how he talked to the players and how he offered advice and helped them get their confidence back.”

The change to Tortorella immediately sparked the Golden Knights, who went 7-0-1 in their final eight regular-season games under him to finish first in the Pacific Division. In contrast, the Devils continued to sputter and went 4-4-0 in their final eight regular-season games under Robinson to fall to second in the Atlantic Division behind the Philadelphia Flyers.

“One thing everyone forgets is that it’s not like we just turned it on,” Gomez said. “We went .500 and Larry said it right away when he took the job. He said, ‘Hey, if you think this is just going to change, you’re fooling yourselves. It’s up to you guys.’

“But then the matchup was perfect and we got on a roll.”

New Jersey swept the overmatched Florida Panthers in four games in the first round to regain its confidence before outlasting the Toronto Maple Leafs, who had finished first in the Northeast Division, in six games in the second round.

Just when it appeared the Devils had figured it out, though, they lost their way again. After defeating Philadelphia 4-1 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final, some of New Jersey’s bad habits returned and it lost three in a row, putting it on the brink of elimination.

“Of course, we have success and then we think we can maybe cut a corner or do something different,” Holik said. “We were a veteran team and experienced, most of us, and we started believing in ourselves instead of the team. That's a big difference. We’re only as good as that team and that’s what drives you to win championships.”

“But it all came down to (Robinson) teaching well, us believing what he's asking us to do, and then him having confidence in us to do it.”

Robinson, who is more laid back, and Tortorella, who is known for being fiery and emotional, are almost opposite in their personalities. In a way, Tortorella seems to have taken a page from Robinson’s book with his calmer approach with Vegas.

Following a 3-1 home loss in Game 4 that put the Devils in a 3-1 series hole in the conference final, Robinson stepped out of character and tapped into his fiery, emotional side in a locker room tirade.

Or as Robinson put it, “My ‘Torts’ came out at that time.”

The most common version of the story begins with Robinson kicking a trash can across the room. Daneyko says it was a Gatorade bottle.

Regardless, Robinson’s raw passion in that moment added weight to his message.

“It was not the yelling,” Brodeur said. “It’s how emotional he was about it. He really just spoke from his heart to us, and it hit everybody.”

Robinson said the gist of his speech, “if you leave out the expletive words,” was: “You only get so many kicks at the can and the position that we were in. Don't say tomorrow, ‘I woulda, shoulda, coulda.’ Now is the time to look around the room and realize that, 'Hey, we’ve shown we're a good hockey team and if we play the right way and do the right things, 3-1 is not going to defeat us. We can come back.’”

Coming from Robinson, the words struck home and instilled the necessary belief that New Jersey could still win the series. 

“He had such a genuine, such a sincere quote-unquote ‘breakdown’ as a coach, we were like, ‘Oh, (shoot), he means it. He knows it,’” Holik said. “So, we were just like, ‘OK, we can't deviate from this.’ And the rest is history.”

The Devils won the next three games, including a 2-1 victory in Philadelphia in Game 7, to become the only team in NHL history to overcome a 3-1 series deficit in a conference final. New Jersey then defeated the Dallas Stars in six games in the Stanley Cup Final to win its second championship in six seasons.

The Golden Knights need to pull off their own comeback now after dropping the past two games to the Hurricanes. Tortorella appears to be sticking with his calmer demeanor with the players, opting instead to project confidence through the media by stating after Game 5, “We’ll be back here,” meaning for a potential Game 7 at Carolina on Wednesday.

“I think ‘Torts’ had to be a little more balanced,” Daneyko said. “He had to be a little kinder, gentler and understanding, especially in today's game with the different players’ mindsets. 

“So, Larry put a little old school ‘Torts’, the ‘past Torts,’ in us, and I think ‘Torts’ has grabbed a little bit of Larry's balanced attack.”