Less than 48 hours after some unexpected comments following their 7-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Philadelphia Flyers made the shocking announcement that they had relieved John Tortorella of his coaching duties with one year remaining on his contract.
The Flyers were in the midst of a 1-10-1 stretch, before Thursday’s win against Montréal, after having previously recorded a five-game point streak that included victories over Edmonton and Minnesota. For those pro-tank, it was the perfect storm because the Flyers went from being a few points out of the final playoff spot in the East to being in the hunt of a top-three pick in a matter of weeks.
After being the face of their rebuild for the last two-plus years, Tortorella’s comments after the game on Tuesday were rather puzzling because it almost sounded like he didn’t want to be a part of one anymore.
“When you’re in this type of situation and you’re losing all the time, and there’s nothing at the end of the tunnel for you, there’s certainly going to be some frustration,” said Tortorella. “But this falls on me. I’m not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season where we’re at right now, but I have to do a better job, so this falls on me getting the team prepared to play the proper way until we get to the end.”
When Chuck Fletcher hired Tortorella in the summer of 2022, the fiery bench boss became the face of the franchise for that season. From the very beginning he was driving the bus that the Flyers needed to build from the ground up, that they had to trust the process, and had to subtract before they made additions.
He even acknowledged that it would take several years but that in the meantime they would play a better brand of hockey that featured a clear identity, which was very much needed in Philadelphia.
The Flyers were playing with more purpose, they were grinding and forechecking like never before, and while they were bereft of talent especially with all the injuries piling up, they were competitive from start to finish.
Sean Couturier and Cam Atkinson returned in 2023-24 and the Flyers played very well out of the gates. They held onto a playoff spot for 4-5 months before a late season collapse saw them on the outside looking in. It was an unexpected playoff push but one that didn’t have to see the team crash out the way they did.
The defensive structure went out the window, the offense dried up, and the goaltending was as bad as we had seen in recent years. Within the calendar year they had lost Carter Hart to the 2018 Hockey Canada scandal, Couturier found himself in the doghouse after being anointed team captain, and Samuel Ersson featured in 30 of the final 36 games because their backup options were horrible.
Daniel Brière didn’t make any additions to the roster outside of Matvei Michkov’s arrival from Russia so it was either going to be a repeat of the start of the 2023-24 season or the collapse that saw them playing like a rebuilding team.
The Flyers came out of the gate with a 12-10-3 record through the first two months of the season before going into a 16-26-6 slide that led to Tortorella’s firing. Going back to the end of January up until the firing, the Flyers were 5-14-3, had been outscored 81-48, were 3 for their last 50 on the power play, and had given up 13 power play goals on 51 attempts.
Their recent 12-game slide before Thursday had seen things unravel quickly to the tune of being outscored 52-22, 0 for their last 30 on the power play, and their penalty kill had allowed 10 goals on 31 attempts. Goaltending had reared its ugly head, special teams battles were thrown out the window, and offensively they’d been driven by one line and one line alone.
However, the issues ran deeper than just bad goaltending and special teams. Unsurprisingly, Tortorella’s coaching tactics were at the forefront of a lot of discussions and controversies this year, which essentially started and ended with Michkov and Cam York.
Michkov was scratched a few times, benched a couple times, and even had an episode with Tortorella on the bench. With the Flyers lacking overall talent, everyone was curious how Tortorella would coach Michkov, especially whenever he made mistakes with his defensive assignments, markings, and overall play off the puck.
Then you had York who was called out, benched a few times, and made a healthy scratch back on March 8th. In Tortorella’s final game behind the bench, he benched York for basically the entire game after he was outmuscled by Bobby McMann behind the net, which ultimately led to the Leafs’ first goal.
York hasn’t had the season everyone was hoping for but he has remained a consistent force on the back-end and has played a solid two-way game this year. However, he felt there was more that he needed from York and went about it in a manner that was typical for Tortorella.
York was not happy about the situation, questioned the move, and it was reminiscent of Couturier’s treatment from last season – which was also a little unnecessary.
With the Flyers floundering offensively, Couturier remained in the bottom-6 despite being one of their better options. This year was a little bit of the same thing, he had Couturier in the bottom-6 at times but also had him featured alongside Michkov and Travis Konecny, which was a trio that usually worked whenever placed together.
While he’s not the offensive force he once was, Couturier remains their best option down the middle and his hockey IQ allows him to keep up with the highly skilled players like Michkov, which is part of why they work so well. He’s always been responsible off the puck so his demotion never truly made sense considering he never made any egregious errors to prompt the change.
With all that in mind, Brière addressed the media, starting with why he made the move and what exactly led them to make the decision.
“I felt it was time. I know you’re going to ask me if there was one thing that happened, it’s not one thing, it’s a series of things that have happened and probably a little bit more in the last three weeks that has escalated since probably around the trade deadline and right after that. It’s not one thing specific, it’s an accumulation that have happened more often lately.”
He later added that his comments after their loss to the Maple Leafs weren’t the driving force but it was something that played in a role in their decision-making process.
“It’s one of the things that has happened along the way, that’s not the specific reason, there’s not one specific reason, but it’s one of the things that has happened along the way. Don’t just focus on that, I’m not going to get into the specifics of what we dealt with … but we had just some different opinions on different things.”
Considering Tortorella’s reputation and how hard he has been on certain players, Brière was asked if the players had any input on the decision but he shut that down as soon as he could.
“This had nothing to do with the players. We didn’t get any input from the players but at the same time we’re really close to the room. Jonesy [Keith Jones] and I are always around, we know what’s going on, maybe not everything, but pretty aware of what’s going on and how things are going. I think Torts did a great job with the young guys, his approach to it to make them pros has really helped a lot of guys, everybody reacts differently. There’s guys that probably didn’t work as well but overall I think he does a tremendous job helping our young guys take a next step.”
Something that had been mentioned a lot in passing was whether or not Tortorella was going to graduate from the bench to the management suite but Brière mentioned that was never on the table.
“I didn’t even see his comments to be honest with you, but no there were no discussions about that. To me, Torts is a coach, that’s his strength, I still see a passionate man that can still coach.”
With Shaw behind the bench to close out the season, Brière was asked if he has any candidates lined up. He mentioned that it hadn’t crossed their minds as of right now and the decision to let go of Tortorella kind of just happened in recent days.
“We’re not there yet, this happened really quick in the last few days. It’s not like we have anything prepared, we haven’t started looking or making a list. We have bigger things to deal with right now to make sure the mindset is in the right place, helping out Brad and his staff, addressing the team and all these things. The focus has been on the players, there’s nine games left and we’re not going to bring a new coach. Brad is the coach to finish the season, we’ll be evaluating him and the coaches, that’s a part of it, I’m not sure exactly what we’re going to be looking for in a coach but one thing i can tell you is that we have a young team and a coach that can teach is going to be important.”
For Shaw, this is the perfect opportunity to showcase his chops as head coach and maybe get an inside track on the position heading into next season and beyond.
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