Despite their recent collapse, it doesn’t appear as though the Philadelphia Flyers are planning to make a coaching change to replace John Tortorella anytime soon. This news comes from TSN’s Darren Dreger who reports that Flyers sources have told him that “Torts is not leaving the bench.” The speculation around Tortorella’s job security makes sense given that the team is mired in a 1-6-3 streak in their last ten and are currently chasing a playoff spot after sitting comfortably in third place in the Metropolitan Division just a few short weeks ago.
The Flyers are winless in eight straight games and have looked lost the last month, particularly in their last three games where they have been outscored 19-7 by the Buffalo Sabres, Columbus Blue Jackets and Montreal Canadiens. Last night’s 9-3 loss to Montreal was particularly difficult to watch as the Canadiens dominated the Flyers from start to finish which further added to speculation about Tortorella’s future.
In other evening notes:
- Aaron Portzline of The Athletic is reporting that Columbus Blue Jackets forward Adam Fantilli won’t play again this season after suffering a lacerated calf against the Seattle Kraken back on January 28th. While that news isn’t overly surprising given that there are just a handful of games left on the NHL schedule, what is surprising to hear is that the 19-year-old rookie might play for Team Canada at the IIHF World Championships if he is healthy a month from now. Fantilli played for Team Canada last year at the tournament and could return on May 10th if he is at 100 percent. Last year’s third-overall pick will finish his first NHL regular season with 12 goals and 15 assists in 49 games.
- Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Chicago Blackhawks defensemen Seth Jones and Alex Vlasic will suit up for Team U.S.A. at the IIHF World Championships. The 22-year-old Vlasic hasn’t represented the United States internationally for over five years, last suiting up for the Americans at the U18 World Championship in 2018-19. Jones last suited up internationally two years ago at the World Championships when he captained the Americans to a fourth-place finish.
Torts has to go.
Torts is actually good…until he’s not.
Then he loses the room and it’s time to go.
Sorta like Boudreau but he doesn’t lose the room. He just doesn’t coach anything.
Swapping these guys back and forth would create the ultimate team.
His goalie is out on bail.
He has done an amazing job with this roster. They are now playing at their true talent level. New coach would not make much difference with this roster.
Yea the recent results have been ugly but nobody expected the Flyers to overachieve as much as they have. The idea that they’d fire him is bonkers to me unless he’s lost the locker room.
This is right. This collapse has been terrible, but this team has been playing above their talent level all season. Everyone wants to dwell on benching Coots and say he’s terrible from the result. He’s pushed so many other buttons this year that have worked. If a coach makes 10 key decisions and the first 9 are great and the last one is bad and you only talk about the bad one you are being foolish. People who think he should be fired should realize he’s closer to the Jack Adams Award than the unemployment line.
While he likely had them overperforming to start the season, they are definately underperforming the 2nd half. Don’t know if he has lost the team or not but signs show it that way. He has the 1st half of next season at most to get them back on pace. If exit meetings tell ownership/upper management he has lost the room he is done. If he has lost the room they need to replace half the players minimum. If it’s just a turn in performance, he has a little leway. Either way, I doubt he has a full season left on this team.
It’s an 82 game season for a reason. Peaks and valleys, the underachieving quarter of the season represents their true lack of talent. The overarching 3/4 was good structure , good coaching , timely saves and unexpected great results. Everyone picked them to be near the bottom. Unfortunately they gave fans the one thing they can’t handle HOPE.
The issue is the way they had to play was almost like treating every game or most games as a playoff game. In an 82 game season guys can’t be playing max effort every single outing. This collapse happened after they played well in a gauntlet of a stretch of games against great teams. They have nothing left in the tank.
Torts should stay! I don’t care if a few of the older, more veteran players have their panties in a wad or not because their Coach has called them out for being exactly what they are “soft”! This has been the Flyers m.o. for the last 20 years or more. Cry to management that the Coach is mean to us and the Flyers replace the Coach with a softer, more gentle player’s Coach! Bullshit!!! Enough is enough!!! Move on to another team, if you’re not happy!!! We’ve got our Coach!!!
Don’t get me wrong, I consider myself a fan of Couturier, but I didn’t and don’t have him pegged exactly as Captain material. Same way I feel about Yanni Gourde though they obviously have much different styles. I love both of their games, but for different reasons, it seems just better to let them play without that added pressure. Dunno how you recover from that unless you just rip the bandaid off in the off-season and recalibrate (unless they go on a deep run or already have some kind of private timeline in place). As for the Kraken since I mentioned it, I’d vote Eberle, then Larsson, and I think they should.
There’s rumor the captaincy was a Danny and Jonesy decision not Torts.
He’s been great over the years with organizing teams immediately and getting results. He looks to maximize the most out of his players, but along that way can also rub his stars wrong and get them going in the opposite direction. He’s a two year and out coach for the most part, and if not in two years, the players will ultimately rebel against him. Like another commenter mentioned above and is best best description of Torts I’ve seen – “he’s good until he’s not good.”
Except that the Flyers don’t really have any star players and were not expected to do much of anything this year, much less with a third-string goalie starting. Yeah, Konecny and Tippet are nice players, but both are playing their best under Torts. Trading Walker waved the white flag on the year; the defense and goaltending subsequently collapsed.
Konecny and Tippett are 2nd line guys on a contending team. They don’t have that Matthews, Caulfield, Marner, Reinhart, etc level guy yet. The first is likely Michkov but he’s a year or 2 away.