Tortorella makes a seemingly ridiculous call in goal tonight.

Baffling decision from Tortorella.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Tortorella makes a seemingly ridiculous call in goal tonight.
Kostas Lymperopoulos/CSM/Zuma

Maybe head coach John Tortorella simply does not believe in match ups or perhaps he is simply looking to send some type of message to his team or a player on that team.

The Columbus Blue Jackets went all in at the trade deadline for the 2018 - 2019 National Hockey League regular season with Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen making some very bold trades. Kekalainen made those moves in spite of the fact that up until that point in the season his Blue Jackets could be at best described as a middling team, one with two big ticket free agents signaling that they were playing their final games in a Blue Jackets uniform. Instead of moving those soon to be free agents, star forward Artemi Panarin and star goalrender Sergei Bobrovsky, as rental players at the deadline Kekalainen instead bolstered his roster with big moves acquiring players like former Ottawa Senators' forwards Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel and even adding some depth in goal by acquiring New Jersey Devils starting netminder Keith Kinkaid before the deadline.

In spite of those moves however the John Tortorella coached Blue Jackets still sit two points out of playoff spot and now only have a few handfuls worth of games left to make up the ground they need just to get into the playoffs, much less contend for a Stanley Cup Championship. So you would think a veteran coach like Tortorella would be doing everything he can to squeeze every possible point out of every single game left remaining on the schedule, which is why his decision today appears to be so confusing. 

With his Blue Jackets set to face off against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday Tortorella has opted to go with his starting netminder in Sergei Bobrovsky. The issue here is that Bobrovsky has been terrible against the Penguins historically, losing in 10 of his last 11 starts against the Penguins, including the playoffs, while posting a 3.88 goals against average and an .880 save percentage. This would explain why the Blue Jackets went with 24 year old Joonas Korpisalo in net on Thursday when the Blue Jackets last faced the Penguins, but it doesn't explain why Tortorella doesn't use his newfound tools to his advantage. 

Over the past two seasons Keith Kinkaid has been dynamite against the Penguins boasting a record of 6-1-1 against the Penguins over that stretch of time and recording a 2.50 goals against average and a .925 save percentage in the process. Should the Blue Jackets falter tonight as they did on Thursday there will no doubt be a ton of finger pointing directed at the Blue Jackets head coach.

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