John Tortorella Lays into Officials During Post-game Rant After Shootout Loss

By Sam Blazer on December 29, 2019 at 8:44 pm
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The Blue Jackets fell to the Chicago Blackhawks in the shootout, but if you talk to head coach John Tortorella, he believes the result is an error on the part of a referee.

Here is Tortorella post-game, first posted in a transcription from The Athletic's Alison Lukan (and you can watch in the video above):

"The whistle is blown at 19.2 on the clock. For some reason the clock is run down a second and a tenth to 18.1, Toronto doesn't step in, refs don't do their freaking job and now we lost a game, and we lose our goalie. So the chain of events, if it was done right, we don't lose our goalie we win the hockey game. So all this goddamn technology, right? The technology and getting things right... the stubbornness tonight, by the officials and the league and by Toronto, however, it's supposed to god damn work, screws us."

As you can tell, this is a sensitive situation and is a likely fine for Tortorella for criticizing the officials openly to the media.

Joonas Korpisalo's injury in the shootout is the likely source of this outburst, and then compounded by Zach Werenski's OT goal not counting after time had expired – time that, had the officials properly reset the game clock after Chicago touched the puck on a delayed penalty, would have been available.

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