George McPhee addresses the Golden Knights losing their second-round draft pick

Remember the Vegas Golden Knights' media fiasco involving former head coach John Tortorella and how he didn't speak to the media after beating the Anaheim Ducks? It caused a massive uproar that devolved into the Golden Knights being fined and losing a 2026 second-round NHL Draft pick. Well, it appears that the president of hockey operations for the Golden Knights had something to say about it.

George McPhee talked about the entire situation with Andy Strickland, telling his side of the story. Let's just say that the whole situation threw him for a loop and he deeply regrets the entire thing happening.

Now, McPhee did say some things that were wrong with the move. For example, the forfeited second-round pick was too high, leaving the Golden Knights with one less prospect to develop or trade. That's reasonable since the NHL was steadfast in not restoring the pick before the 2026 NHL Draft.

However, the overall consensus is that the situation was mishandled by Tortorella. Kelly McCrimmon and McPhee didn't catch wind of this until it was too late, leaving Vegas down some money and a draft pick. Imagine going back to the hotel and hearing that your head coach blew off the media after beating the Anaheim Ducks.

Listening to this, the onus doesn't necessarily fall on McCrimmon or McPhee. It falls on Tortorella, who acted as a rogue agent throughout the proceedings. He decided to take the team away from the podium, which led to dire consequences imposed by the NHL.

Could McCrimmon and McPhee have done more to prevent this from happening? In a sense, yes. Perhaps a little pep talk would've helped the situation and kept the former Golden Knights head coach from going his own way. However, you can't stop someone like Tortorella from doing whatever he wants. That's a harsh lesson that McPhee and McCrimmon had to learn this postseason. Can't give the haters fuel, you know?

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