COLUMBUS, Ohio — John Tortorella has been “pissed off” most of this offseason, not directly at the players who left the Blue Jackets via free agency — Sergei Bobrovsky, Matt Duchene, Artemi Panarin and others — but certainly at their desire to leave Columbus.



He doesn’t have much time for people who expect the Blue Jackets to go back to their old losing ways again, either. But after pulling off a major upset of Tampa Bay (4-0 sweep) in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring, the Blue Jackets face a host of significant questions heading into the 2019-20 season.



For the third consecutive summer, Tortorella sat down with The Athletic for a wide-ranging, few-holds barred interview about the state of his club, from the challenge of replacing the scoring that left with Duchene and Panarin, to the challenge of finding a goaltender (or two) to replace Bobrovsky.



With his usual blunt-force candor, Tortorella also...