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Report: NHL will hold in-person meeting with Tortorella

tortorellagetty

James OBrien

The NHL isn’t just holding a hearing with Vancouver Canucks head coach John Tortorella, it will happen in person, according to TSN’s Darren Dreger.

As Dreger notes, that opens the door for a more substantial fine and/or suspension for Tortorella, who inspired this confrontation in front of the Calgary Flames locker room on Saturday:

Tortorella was open about the line brawl that began last night’s Canucks - Flames game, but didn’t address the hallway altercation in his press conference after the win:

Today’s earlier PHT post points out one of the few examples of what you might call precedent for what happened, as TSN’s Bob McKenzie noted that Montreal’s Shayne Corson sat out five games for attempting to confront Ed Jovanovski in Vancouver’s locker room back in 1999.

Of course, that’s a player doing it, not a coach. On the other hand, the league’s player safety process has changed, so Brendan Shanahan could likely argue that such a comparison is largely irrelevant.

The two teams racked up more than 200 penalty minutes in the game, which the Canucks won 3-2 via a shootout. Vancouver’s next contest is a road match against the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday, so the league will have some (but not a lot) of time to mull over his punishment.

Follow James O’Brien @cyclelikesedins