Vancouver Canucks' coach John Tortorella can be abrupt, abrasive and very loud - he has no issue tearing into his players in animated meltdowns on the bench.

Because he loves them.

That's right, the caustic coach in his first year in Vancouver has been quoted as saying that he yells at his players because he loves them, and the more he loves them, the angrier they can make him.

Tortorella really showed his players the love after they gave up a game tying goal to the Boston Bruins just over four minutes into the second period on Saturday night, calling a rare early timeout and launching into a full finger-pointing rage on the entire bench, the players responding by clamping down on defense...

...and amping up on offense, scoring four unanswered goals in less than a period's worth of game time and five straight overall - goaltender Roberto Luongo stoning everyone on the Bruins except the speedy Reilly Smith as the Canucks blew the Bruins out of Rogers Arena in Vancouver by a final of 6-2.

It isn't as if the Canucks were playing badly, for they offer a special brand of defense, one that has them in the top five in goals allowed, but the things that they do best on defense - clog the middle and swarm the wings - were apparently waning in Tortorella's opinion, and he let them know about it.

"We weren't playing well" Tortorella said when asked why the timeout so early in the contest, but when asked what was said in the tirade he repied, "That's none of your business."

Apparently, John Tortorella doesn't love the media as much as he loves his players.

Luongo stopped 39 of 41 Bruins' shots on goal, the two that got past him