Tortorella: We played our asses off

John Tortorella was his usual forthright self after his Columbus Blue Jackets were eliminated by the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night.

"We played our ass(es) off," the Blue Jackets head coach told reporters after a 5-2 defeat in Game 5. "That's not a (typical) 4-1 series."

He declined to discuss the controversial play early in the third period on which the Blue Jackets tied the game but then had the goal waved off after it was deemed Alexander Wennberg interfered with Marc-Andre Fleury.

Fleury appeared to be outside the crease when the contact was made, but Tortorella wasn't interested in going down that road.

"You guys watched the game. You don't need my help with that," he said.

When he was asked about it for a second time, the coach made it clear he really didn't want to go there.

"I'm not talking about the play," he insisted. "Stop baiting me into it, please. There's no sense in me having a viewpoint on it. It happened."

Tortorella didn't want to play favorites when asked about Boone Jenner's solid performance in the series-clinching loss.

"I'm not singling out any one player," the coach said. "That was a team effort. I like our group. I'll tell you right now, I like our group. Do we have some things to work on and get better at? Damn right, we do, but I like our group."

Columbus had its best regular season in franchise history, and there's plenty to be optimistic about going into next season despite the early exit.

Still, Tortorella's absence from the remaining playoff press conferences will be noticeable, to say the least.