Hopefully everyone has had the chance to breathe after the last 48 hours.

It went from wondering if the Vegas Golden Knights were going to make the playoffs, to if they were going to make the playoffs with a new coach.

The Knights were going to enter this final stretch of seven games remaining in a good spot to return to the playoffs whether it was John Tortorella or Bruce Cassidy behind the bench.

Five of their final seven games, starting with Thursday’s tilt against the Calgary Flames, are against teams outside the playoffs cutline.

The kind of collapse it would take for this team to not take care of business down the stretch would be impossible to comprehend.

But it reached the point general manager Kelly McCrimmon needed a new voice to lead this roster he’s constructed. The players, for what it’s worth, felt the same way.

The Knights are moving forward with what’s going to be the most interesting stretch of games in recent memory.

It’s off to a decent start after a 4-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Monday.

“The easiest thing in the world is to do nothing, right?” McCrimmon said Monday. “And, we wouldn’t be having this press conference if that was the path that we chose.

“I think when we’ve changed coaches along the way, I’m going to say each time it was likely viewed by this room as being awkward or not the right time, and I think in each case the decisions were good ones.”

A different situation

The Knights don’t play for another two days. Decompression is needed somewhere. That starts with Tortorella getting situated in his new lodgings at Red Rock, getting to know his coaches a little more and getting the last names of his players right.

It’s a process, and one that doesn’t have a lot of time.

It’s a tall ask for the former Stanley Cup champion coach to get a group that has been barely above water since the Olympic break to ignite a spark.

Tortorella isn’t walking into a rebuild like he had in Philadelphia. The three-year grind left the Flyers in better shape than where they started and they’re inching toward a playoff spot this year.

He’s inheriting a team that’s well-structured, to where he texted his predecessor Sunday on his way to Las Vegas to thank him for how he left everything.

Whether that results in 16 wins throughout the spring and another 35-pound silver trophy to the collection remains to be seen.

“I’m very fortunate to get the opportunity to work with this management, this group of players because the organization is so well-respected, I don’t want to let them down,” Tortorella said. “I am going to prepare myself each and every day to be the best I can be, the best version of me to help the team.”

Questions, again, in net

Tortorella has some things to iron out between now and the regular season.

Chief among them is the goaltending, and how he’ll handle three goaltenders on the active roster in the near future.

Carter Hart, out since January with a lower-body injury, has returned to practice and is nearing a return. McCrimmon said he anticipates Hart playing in the regular season.

But they’re still trying to get Adin Hill his reps as the No. 1 netminder until otherwise noted, along with Akira Schmid as the backup.

“Three goalies, it’s a tricky thing to do, especially at the end of the year when you are really trying to figure out hoping you get in and getting your team ready to play in the playoffs,” Tortorella said.

Tortorella coached Hart in Philadelphia for parts of two seasons. In the two times mentioning him, he seemed excited to be working with the 27-year-old goaltender again.

Cassidy seemed hell-bent on Hill getting the lion’s share of the reps between now and the playoffs. Now, it’s not certain.

The last couple of days have been a whirlwind with the Knights being at the epicenter of the hockey world yet again.

And here we thought it was going to be a calm coast to the April 15 season finale. Silly us.

Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.

Up next

Who: Flames at Golden Knights

When: 7 p.m. Thursday

Where: T-Mobile Arena

TV: KMCC-34

Radio: KFLG 94.7 FM/KKGK 1340 AM