The New York Rangers have announced today that head coach John Tortorella has been fired. The Rangers revealed the news on the team Twitter feed, tweeting out the message: BREAKING NEWS: The #NYR have relieved John Tortorella of his coaching duties...details to follow."
The Rangers entered the 2013 season with Stanley Cup expectations, but underachieved and were forced to battle to the end of the season for a playoff berth. In the postseason, the Rangers needed seven games to dispatch the Washington Capitals before eventually succumbing to the Boston Bruins in five games.
Recently, there has been speculation that star goaltender Henrik Lundqvist is unhappy with the direction of the team, and has been non-committal publicly about signing a long-term extension. The move to fire Tortorella, who was 171-115-29 during his Rangers tenure, could be a move to signal to Lundqvist that the team is very serious about championship contention.
This season, Tortorella has faced questions about his dealings with players, namely top scorer Marian Gaborik, whose relationship with the coach was strained to the point that the team dealt him at the trading deadline to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Another point of contention was the Rangers' power play offense. The Rangers had the seventh-lowest amount of power play goals (24) in the entire NHL this year, as well as the seventh-worst power play percentage.
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