Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

John Tortorella After Thirty Days In Columbus

11/24/2015 at 2:28pm EST

from Shawn Mitchell of Puck-Rakers,

Tortorella was asked to assess his first 30 days, personally and professionally, this afternoon. The Jackets are 8-7 since he replaced Todd Richards on Oct. 21.

Forget the personal part.

“The only thing I worry about is the team,” Tortorella said. “Am I where I want to be with the team? No. We still have a lot of work to do. The biggest points – and they are two things you can control: We need to be consistently harder, and we need to play with pace. Those are two big points that we’re trying to get situated.”

There is always a push when a coaching change is made. Cliché, but true. It wasn’t readily apparent when Tortorella took over – the Jackets were 4-3 in his first seven games – but there has not been a pronounced drop when the newness wore off, either.

“It’s been up and down,” Tortorella said. “I don’t look at it as a lull. It’s been up and down. A big reason why we bring them in (to practice yesterday and today) is because we don’t have a full understanding of the standard we need to be at in all areas of the game. Some things you can’t control in our game, but it’s how hard you play, how hard you are with your bite as a team, and the pace you play with – you can control that.”

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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