Usually, if an NHL team is going into its conference final with a cloud hanging over, it has to do with a player who’s out of the lineup because of injury or maybe a suspension.
Rarely is that cloud because the team just had its second-round pick that’s just a month away, yoinked from them, and the coach was slapped with a $100,000 fine.
But that’s what’s happening to the Vegas Golden Knights.
And head coach John Tortorella does not want to talk about it… which is also kind of how all of this started.
Tortorella usually gets in trouble for what he says, but in this case, it was for what he didn’t say, which was anything to the media after Vegas’ Game 6 over the Anaheim Ducks.
That led to the penalties from the league, which said there had been multiple warnings to the club.
Vegas responded by saying it would not comment on the matter, and on Saturday, Tortorella toed the company line and followed suit.
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Which, again, is rare.
While he was mum on this topic, Tortorella did discuss the upcoming series with the Colorado Avalanche.
It’s still unclear why Tortorella skipped his media obligations and the post-series handshake line, but Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that it was because the coach was upset about defenseman Brayden McNabb’s suspension from an incident in Game 5 that kept him out of Game 6.
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Of course, since neither the Golden Knights nor Tortorella wants to talk about it, we still don’t know for sure.
It also seems unusual that the team made no mention of whether or not it plans to appeal the ruling. The original statement — which Tortorella alluded to on Saturday — was as much of a “no comment” as it gets.
It’s hard to imagine this subject going away or disappearing from everyone’s mind before the Western Conference Final starts.
So, we’ll have to see if both the Golden Knights and Tortorella can continue to skirt the issue.
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