Rangers coach John Tortorella made it clear in his first meeting with New York reporters he wanted Lightning associate coach Mike Sullivan to join him in New York.

"I think Mike Sullivan is a hell of a coach and I wanted him here, but it got a little bit crazy," Tortorella told reporters after running his first Rangers practice.

He also added that he asked Rangers assistant GM Jim Schoenfeld to take the assistant coach job in the interim. "He wasn't pushing for any of this stuff," Tortorella said of Schoenfeld, who was head coach of the Coyotes from 1997-99, when Tortorella was a Phoenix assistant. "He knows Sully. He's doing me a favor instead of me going out and sifting for a coach."

Schoenfeld's official title is interim assistant coach.

Sullivan, who was fired in June along with Tortorella and re-hired by the Lightning in November to help interim coach Rick Tocchet, has a contract that runs out after this season. Could Sullivan end up in New York with Torts in 2009-10? We'll see. Sullivan declined to comment beyond saying he did not want to get into anything that would be a distraction to Tampa Bay.