Former NHL bad boy Sean Avery praises one coach and rips another.

It's been a long time since fans have seen Sean Avery's named mentioned around in the National Hockey League, but the controversial former player made some headlines today after he made comments about two current NHL coaches.

In a recent interview with ESNP's Dan Marrazza, Avery was asked about his generally high praise of head coach Mike Babcock, form whom Avery played before ever making it to the NHL level. Marrazza also asked Avery to compare Babcock to some other currents coaches and as you would expect the former pest didn't hold back.

Babcock had the same mentality as we did. He was bringing it every single day and was as hard as he wanted to be on us. He was developing his own language, which he now uses so well to talk to players and keep the Toronto media from ever having a clue what he's thinking. The Toronto media would get the Leafs' last coach, Randy Carlyle, all fired up. He wouldn't talk to them for days. Babcock wouldn't show his cards. He has a manipulative personality for the purpose of being a good coach -- you have to have one. John Tortorella has no manipulation in him whatsoever. He only has one gear, and that's to scream at people and thinks that that's manipulation or motivation. But it's not. It doesn't work on rich players. They can say, 'F--- you. We're going somewhere else.' Or 'We'll get rid of you' -- and we will.

Avery makes an excellent point, the kind of bombastic attitude he's referring to is far more likely to have an impact on kids than it would grown men with incredible job security. One doesn't have to look very far to see where the John Tortorella experiment has been a major failure, fired from New York after rumors he had lost the room, almost immediately fired in Vancouver after signing a big deal, and off to a rough start with the Blue Jackets after a terrible season and a great deal of friction with former franchise player Ryan Johansen.

Perhaps Sean Avery knows what he's talking about in this instance.

[pub]