Tortorella: 'Common sense dictates' decision to eschew morning skates

The Columbus Blue Jackets are benefiting from some added downtime.

In November, head coach John Tortorella made headlines by deciding to part with the traditional mandatory morning skate, in an effort to shake his players' routines.

A month later, Columbus owns the NHL's best winning percentage (.731), and have danced to the tune of an 11-1-2 record in their past 14 contests.

While a strong offense and superb goaltending may factor into the club's success more than barring gameday practices, Tortorella still doesn't see the benefits of a mandatory skate.

"That's about stupidity, quite honestly," Tortorella told reporters Tuesday. "Why do we bring the players in once a day to practice and let them go home, but bring them in twice a day to play a game?

"Common sense dictates."

The Blue Jackets are a young team, and during the grind of an 82-game season, Tortorella doesn't want his troops thinking about the rink 24 hours a day.

"We are trying to keep our guys, not so much physically fresh, but mentally fresh," Tortorella said.

Winning talks the loudest, and at this point, it's tough to form an argument against Tortorella's strategy.