The Philadelphia Flyers have announced they have relieved John Tortorella of his head coaching duties.
Associate coach Brad Shaw will step up as the interim head coach for the Flyers’ final nine games of the 2024-25 season.
Across his two-plus seasons at the helm, Tortorella accumulated a 97-107-33 record in Philadelphia and the Flyers missed the playoffs in both of his full seasons, and this season will be no different as the team is currently working through their rebuild.
“Today I made the very difficult decision to move on from John as our head coach,” said Flyers General Manager Daniel Brière. “John played a vital role in our rebuild. He set a standard of play and re-established what it means to be a Philadelphia Flyer. John’s passion on the bench was only equaled by his charitable work in our community. As we move into the next chapter of this rebuild, I felt this was the best for our team to move forward. I’d like to thank John for his tireless work and commitment to the Flyers.”
Tortorella’s firing comes less than 48 hours after a 7-2 blowout loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, in which he shared some very candid comments postgame.
“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.”
In that same game, Cam York was stapled to the bench after the Maple Leafs’ first goal and only played 3:50. Prior to that, York was healthy scratched for the Flyers’ 4-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken back on March 8th, and he later said that he disagreed with the decision and that was no communication between him and Tortorella.
“Whatever he thinks, I don’t know,” said York. “If there was communication, then maybe I would understand. But I’m just not sure, really. I’m going to play as hard as I can here. This last little stretch of games here, just want to play some of the best hockey that I can.”
York’s comments were similar to Sean Couturier’s when asked about communication with Tortorella after the Flyers captain was scratched last season.
“I’ve gotten the same answers as you guys, just need to see more,” said Couturier last year. “Still looking to find out what that is but I’m trying every game, it’s not like I’m just sitting around or doing nothing. Like I said yesterday, I felt the last couple of games, limited ice time and opportunities I’ve been getting, been doing alright, but I guess we’re going with the best lineup available tonight to get the win. It is what it is.”
Tortorella’s scratchings and benchings of star rookie Matvei Michkov over the course of this season have drawn the ire of plenty as well, but that was par for the course with younger players under his guidance here. Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost went through similar patterns over their time in Philadelphia under Tortorella before they were traded to the Calgary Flames in January.
In the meantime, the Flyers will be on the hunt for a new coach this summer in what will be another pivotal offseason for the franchise.
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