On Dec. 20, 2011, coach John Tortorella’s New York Rangers visited their rivals the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center in Newark for the first time that season. It was a key division game, and one that would set the tone for the rest of their season series.
The Rangers, as the road team, would determine the personnel on the opening faceoff. In their previous two road games, New York started No. 1 center Brad Richards’ line for the opening draw.
In this game, Tortorella opted for a different look: Fourth liners Mike Rupp, Ruslan Fedotenko and Brandon Prust.
Devils Coach Pete DeBoer responded in kind: Rather than throwing Zach Parise to the lions, like Randy Carlyle did when he lined Phil Kessel up next to John Scott this season, DeBoer skated out Cam Janssen, Eric Boulton and Tim Sestito.
The result? Comedic mayhem
Fast forward three months, and the Rangers and Devils met again at Madison Square Garden. This time it was DeBoer that sent out the goons: Eric Boulton, Ryan Carter and Cam Janssen. Tortorella was forced to send out Brandon Prust, Brandon Dubinsky and Mike Rupp. Dubinsky was recovering from sinus damage, so defenseman Stu Bickel took the opening draw, knowing what was bound to happen
Tortorella loudly scolded DeBoer from the Rangers’ bench, pointing and hurling F-bombs at the opposing coach … for doing exactly what he had done in Jersey months earlier.
“I guess in John’s world you can come into our building and start your tough guys, but we can’t do the same in here,†DeBoer said. “He’s either got short-term memory loss or he’s a hypocrite. So it’s one of the other.â€
Said Janssen, via Fire & Ice: “If they didn’t want to do it and didn’t think it was necessary, then they wouldn’t have done it. It takes two guys to fight and we both agreed upon and we both obviously thought it was necessary and that’s why we did it."
Torts is a hypocrite. He's done the same "player selection" **** people are putting on Hartley, so don't act like he's some harmless victim just protecting his team.