Last night, San Jose's Joe Thornton called the Rangers "probably the softest team we played against on this road trip." (The Sharks had won the first five games of said road trip, but lost last night at the Garden, 5-2.) But John Tortorella didn't have much to say in response during his post-game press conference. "Wonderful," said the Rangers coach, when told what Thornton had said. But Tortorella's since confirmed Thornton's comments, and today, as we probably should have expected, he fired back. Via the Daily News:

“Yeah it caught me off-guard when it was brought up after the game,” Tortorella said at the team’s Greenburgh practice facility Tuesday morning. “It surprised me, and I’ve never heard a player say that. Joe’s a heck of a player, but here’s a player popping off about our team, and Joe hasn’t won a g--damn thing in this league. He could go down as a player, being one of the better players in our league never to win anything. So what he should do is just shut up. It was uncalled for, it was classless, and I’ve never had it happen like that before.”

Yep, that's more like it.