Are Capitals interested in Wayne Gretzky or John Tortorella? Ted Leonsis won’t say

Wayne Gretzky and the Capitals — both golfing this postseason. (Photo by Isaac Brekken/Getty Images)

After he finished talking about Wizards season ticket numbers (they’re up) and Wizards bloggers (they’re admired) during an appearance on DC101′s “Elliot in the Morning” this week, Ted Leonsis was asked about the Capitals’ rumored interest in Wayne Gretzky for their vacant general manager or head coach positions.

“I’m not going to say anything about anyone just because it’s not appropriate,” Leonsis said. “And the reason it’s not appropriate is, let’s say a name gets out there and we’re not interested. So now you have all sorts of swirl about that. Or let’s say we are interested and we don’t hire the person, right? [Let’s say] that someone else comes in with a better plan. All of a sudden that means that that person is a loser. And again, we admire the way that we handle the departures; I want everyone to admire the way we on-board and do the recruiting process. I’m just not going to talk about anything. We’ll let the bloggers and the media speculate, talk, and whatever. I just don’t think it’s appropriate.”

The swirl about Gretzky, who watched a game from Leonsis’ box at Verizon Center last November, isn’t particularly strong at this point, but just give us bloggers time.

“Mutual interest” between Wayne Gretzky and the Washington Capitals, reports @Sportsnet‘s John Shannon http://t.co/kkW9ZsdLmL

— Hockey Central (@SNHockeyCentral) April 29, 2014

Elliott also asked Leonsis if he could rule out former Canucks and Rangers coach John Tortorella as a potential replacement for Adam Oates.

“We would prefer to have a general manager and have the general manager work with us to hire the coach,” Leonsis said. “That’s kind of the plan right now, but we’ve left it open that if we wanted to hire a coach, we can do that as well. It’s not the preferred route, but it’s not the end of the world if that’s what we decided to do either. Right now, the main focus is in finding the general manager.”

At least Leonsis gave more of a answer than Torts would’ve.