NHL News: Dubois’ agent has had it with Tortorella, Rutherford quit over Letang trade, and more
Anthony Scultore
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As The Blue Jackets Turn would be a great name for the Soap Opera going on in Columbus. Fresh off the heels of an interview where John Tortorella was asked about the Pierre-Luc Dubois situation, his agent finally had enough.
NHL News: Pat Brisson annoyed with John Tortorella
“From Day 1 of camp, John Tortorella wanted to expose Pierre-Luc Dubois. This included going on radio the second week, which made it more difficult for GM Jarmo Kekalainen to do his job,” Dubois’ agent Pat Brisson told TSN.
“Now he continues to use different media platforms trying to justify his position. I have not heard Paul Maurice once say anything about a trade request from both Laine or Roslovic. This could have been operation submarine but, ah well, Torts wasn’t able to help himself.”
In fairness to Torts, Kekalainen was pretty critical of Dubois too.
After the trade, Dubois told Sportsnet that he always knew he wanted to be traded. “It was something I thought about, and as negotiations were going, you obviously don’t take anything personally, but as they go longer and longer, you kind of start to think about stuff and situations,” he explained.
This prompted a fairly fiery response from the Jackets GM.
“That’s just flat out not true at all and he knows that, so I don’t know why he would say that or even insinuate something like that,” Jarmo Kekalainen said on TSN Radio. “It took all in all, I think 10 minutes to do his contract when we finally agreed on the length of the deal and we had everything from two years, to three years to eight years on the table.”
Pretty wild stuff in Ohio. Maybe it’s over – maybe.
NHL Rumor: Rutherford quit over Kris Letang trade?
A report coming out of Pittsburgh indicated the fallout stemmed from ownership putting the kibosh on a Kris Letang trade.
Rob Rossi who covers the Penguins for The Athletic has already disputed this report. So your guess is as good as mine.
At the end of the day, the resignation was abrupt and left Mario Lemieux and others shocked. That doesn’t happen just because Rutherford didn’t feel like being GM anymore.