It was part New Torts and part Old Torts, and in the end, the Canucks are stuck with both.
On Tuesday afternoon, former Rangers coach John Tortorella was officially announced as the new head coach of the Canucks, just days after former Vancouver headman Alain Vigneault was named as Tortorella’s replacement here.
And for his first day on the job, the combustible and often stubborn Tortorella did an online question-and-answer with fans and season-ticket holders of his new organization, both admitting his past mistakes and reiterating some of his old and tired axioms from his four and a half years on Broadway.
“When you get fired, I think you crawl into a hole a little bit – I did,” said Tortorella, who was let go by Rangers general manager Glen Sather on May 29. “You reassess what happened. I think coaches assess themselves by themselves, really. Coaches want to coach [and] I love competing, I wanted to be in. I wasn’t sure where it was going to go.”
In order to accomplish that Tortorella realized he had to adjust the way he dealt with his players and the media. Before speaking with season ticket-holders, Tortorella held a pleasant 30-minute sitdown with NHL.com in which he tried to take his first steps toward eliminating the gruff image that he earned with the Rangers.
“It’s come to the point with me where I’m kind of being defined as ‘that lunatic,’ not only on the bench, but also after games with media.” Tortorella said. “I don’t want to be defined that way, but I do make my own bed in that type of situation and I need to make some corrections, I need to make some adjustments in that part of it.
“I’m dealing with an older team here, as I look at the roster, I think I need to respect the older players and some of the processes they’ve gone through and make adjustments with myself as far as how I handle them.”
Vancouver general manager Mike Gillis brought Tortorella in for his first interview last week, and they spent the majority of that time discussing the coach’s contemptuous relationship with the media. Tortorella openly discussed regretting the way some things happened with reporters, and put on his best honest face when he vowed to change.
“It’s a huge part of my job here, I know that,” Tortorella said, speaking about the hockey-crazed and at times biting Vancouver media, with whom he would meet later in the day. “Mike and I have talked extensively on that. I have certainly made my own bed in situations I’ve put myself and other people in. I will cultivate my relationship with the media here.
“I want this to work,” he continued. “I do come with some baggage with that, I readily admit that, I’m not going to hide from that. I’ve made some mistakes along the way. I’m compelled to make this work with us working together.”
Gillis, in a moment of rare levity in what was supposed to be a rather light-hearted affair turned dull, even mentioned The Post’s Larry Brooks, with whom Tortorella had had some tense public exchanges.
“One of the first things I told him was that I was friends with Larry Brooks, so we had a laugh about that,” Gillis said. “Some things in the past don’t go the way you want them to go. I have no concerns with that moving forward. John is a professional, and for our group right now, he is a perfect choice.”
As for his time in New York, Tortorella was quick to pat himself on the back in terms of developing young players, singling out center Derek Stepan and winger Carl Hagelin – funny enough, both in the midst of negotiating restricted free-agent contracts – as making major strides under his watch.
“That is one of things I’m very proud of in New York – I think we changed the culture there from signing free agents all the time,” Tortorella said. “We moved to the youth and our farm team and bringing up players from within. It’s a must.
“You look at Stepan, Hagelin, they’re big pieces for them there, and I’m anxious for that to happen here. That’s a big way to win now and to move forward.”
Tortorella also didn’t hesitate to emphasize that his defense-first style of play is staying in place, as a lot of the standard sayings from his time here were regurgitated with the same intensity as when he brought the Rangers to within two wins of the Stanley Cup finals in 2012, and into the second round this season.
“The grind and the stiffness and the hardness of a team needs to be consistent in the regular season just to get to be where you need to be in the regular season,” Tortorella said. “There isn’t a coach in this league that doesn’t want that offense, but it’s hard. As you’re trying to create that offense, you have to make sure you’re doing things the right way.
“That’s a big part of winning a hockey game – that puck. And that comes down to battles.”
Where Sather said the style of the game had evolved past what Tortorella was preaching, Gillis thinks it is a perfect fit for his team which has now been bumped from the playoffs in the first round in two consecutive years after making it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final in 2011.
“We need to strike that balance between offensive play and defensive play,” Gillis said. “I agree with John totally – we have to prepare in the regular for what happens in the postseason.”
bcyrgalis@nypost.com