“I live under a rock,” John Tortorella said on ESPN’s The Point. “I didn’t realize all of this was going on after the show.”
Torts began speaking about his comments on the Trevor Zegras’ “pass streamed around the world”, where he criticized if it was “good for hockey.” While he still feels is that pass being a good hockey play is debatable he wanted to set the record straight.
Tortorella reached out to Zegras
Anaheim Ducks rookie Trevor Zegras has been the toast of the NHL since pulling off an amazing puck flip pass for a goal that has been viewed over 50 million times so far.
“I’m not trying to be difficult about it. It’s fun to watch, it’s really cool but I just think our game has gone so far away from what the game should be. A hard game, an honest game. It’s almost gotten to showman,” Tortorella said earlier last week. “I know you need to have it, you need to sell the game but I’m from the ilk that an honest hockey game needs to be played.”
The criticism left Zegras even more shocked than he was after he executed the play. “I didn’t really see where he was coming from,” he responded. “It’s just one of those things that he’s entitled to this opinion. I guess we got to just live with it.”
After hearing about the backlash and a fellow coach sending him an article where it sounded like he was being critical of the player, not the play, Torts reached out to Zegras.
“I read the article and saw what this kid was going through with the questions being asked and my heart dropped,” the former coach said. “That was the furthest thing from my mind criticizing this kid.”
“What bothers me is the media – my comments have been taken out of context trying to pit and Trevor against one another” Torts explained. “I feel terrible about that and I reached out to him and his coach. I hope he does it again quite honestly.”
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