Tortorella using conflict to find comfort in Blue Jackets' room

If it's not conflict, it's not really communication in the eyes of John Tortorella.

The brash, often bumptious Columbus Blue Jackets head coach, who has his bottom-feeding club playing its best hockey of the season right now, recently opened up about the type of verbal exchanges he prefers, in conversation with Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch.

And to no one's surprise: the more color, the better.

"I even try to manipulate situations to try and cause an argument," Tortorella explained. "I want an argument. I want the conversation. If they're not going to come in and talk to me, I'm going to cause something so you have to talk to me.

"It may turn into conflict. But I think that's some of the most important stuff you can have with the player.

"When there's conflict, there's honesty."

It sounds intense, and perhaps too extreme for, say, Ryan Johansen. But for the Blue Jackets, it's working.

"He has a reputation as a mean-ass coach, hard on superstars," winger Rene Bourque told Portzline. "That's been built up a lot over the years.

"Maybe he was like that before, but he's been really good with the guys in here. He wants the back-and-forth, he wants the interaction. He's a really good teacher."

All that yelling, screaming, and berating, of course, is easier to tolerate when you're winning. Columbus has points in nine of its last 10 games.