A week has passed since Pierre-Luc Dubois played his final game for the Columbus Blue Jackets.
But the war of words continues.
Allow us to quickly catch you up.
For weeks, Dubois wanted the Blue Jackets to trade him. Things came to a head last Thursday, when he was stapled to the bench after visibly mailing in a shift against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Columbus head coach John Tortorella, however, didn’t really tear into the star center publicly.
Two days later, the Blue Jackets swung a trade with Winnipeg, landing a pair of disgruntled Jets in Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic. Going to Manitoba in the deal, of course, was Dubois.
Then, Tortorella finally ripped Dubois on Wednesday (like we all had been waiting for), in effect calling him soft.
So now, enter Dubois’ agent, Pat Brisson, who released a statement to TSN’s Darren Dreger.
“From Day 1 of camp, John Tortorella wanted to expose Pierre-Luc Dubois,” Dreger read Thursday on TSN’s “Insider Trading.” “This included going on radio the second week, which made it more difficult for the GM (Jarmo Kekalainen) to do his job. Now, he continues to use different media platforms trying to justify his position. I have not heard (Jets coach) Paul Maurice once say anything about a trade request from both Laine or Roslovic. This could’ve been operation submarine, but ah, well, Torts wasn’t able to help himself.”
Tortorella typically is not one to back down from conflict, so there’s a real possibility we haven’t heard the end of this.
