After nearly three years behind the bench, John Tortorella is no longer the head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers announced they’ve relieved Tortorella of head coaching duties and named associate coach Brad Shaw the interim head coach for the remaining schedule.
In the statement, Flyers’ General Manager Daniel Brière said, “Today I made the very difficult decision to move on from John as our head coach. 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.”
It’s a bold yet unsurprising move from Brière. From most statements, the Flyers’ front office had honest expectations for the team heading into the 2024-25 season, and even those haven’t been met. The biggest tell that a change behind the bench was incoming was Tortorella’s comments after Philadelphia’s embarrassing defeat against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday.
Tortorella was quoted saying, “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.” 
He attempted to smooth over the sentence in the same statement; however, Tortorella’s statement that he’s uninterested in learning how to coach in ’this type of season’ is indicative of the duress he was under through March. Philadelphia performed relatively well through the first five months of the season with a 26-26-8 record through 60 games, but the bottom has completely fallen out from underneath them.
Since the calendar turned to March, the Flyers have played 13 games but only won two. Opposing teams are outscoring them by a margin of 29, and they haven’t scored a powerplay goal despite having 31 opportunities to do so. Additionally, the team’s penalty kill operated at a 69.6% rate, which would only be higher than the Detroit Red Wings if that were extrapolated over the entire campaign. Surprisingly, the part that may sting the most for Philadelphia is that they largely controlled play at even strength with a 50.5% CorsiFor% through the month.
The blame can never be placed at the feet of one man, especially in a team sport. Still, a change had to be made after the wheels completely fell off the season. Surprisingly, Philadelphia didn’t wait until the end of the regular season to terminate Tortorella. The veteran coach’s comments from the other night may have been the final nail in the coffin for the Flyers’ management. Tortorella ends his tenure behind Philadelphia’s bench with a 97-107-33 record in 237 games.
Meanwhile, Shaw earns his second stint as a head coach in the National Hockey League for the first time since the 2005-06 season when he replaced Steve Stirling behind the bench for the New York Islanders. Shaw was hired as the Flyers’ associate coach in 2022-23, his second stint on Tortorella’s staff since their time with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
There’s little expectation that Shaw will remain as Philadelphia’s head coach beyond this season. Still, the organization will do their due diligence during the hiring process, and Shaw’s hat may be in the ring. If he doesn’t remain with the team beyond the current campaign, Shaw will only serve 9 games as the Flyers’ head coach.
Image courtesy of James Carey Lauder-Imagn Images.
Oh please don’t let me see him connected with the Blackhawks anytime in the near future.
lol my first thought seeing this and ran to comments. “Black Hawks”
Blackhawks- One word is what the team is called. I’m 68 and it’s been that way my whole life. If you go to the NHL site and search teams and look them up it’ll prove my point soon enough.
He pretty much lost the team and to me after Laughton was traded the team pretty much quit.
He lost the team with that disgusting look on his face game after game after game after game. . Horrible coach.
Interesting timing considering the Flyers will once again miss the playoffs why not just wait until the end of the season which is only a couple of weeks away?
Because he disrespected the team,the organization and sadly himself. Torts did a horrendous job . Good riddance.
That quote pretty much seemed like him trying to be fired.
“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.”
Not his fault. Briere got ripped off on the Farabee and Laughton trades. And the fact he couldn’t trade Risto for a bag of pucks to get salary relief is a crime. Oh and btw we haven’t had a goalie since giving up on Bob.
Terrible take. You should self mute
Carter Hart was good for a couple seasons, almost an Eastern Conference Final before falling to the Islanders
Dude relax. Everybody gets an opinion without being a jerk. Blame him for the crappy power play. But you can’t blame him for the absence of goaltending. Or the perpetual cap problems.
Farabee/Frost was highway robbery. Both stunk and the Flyers got out of Farabee’s contract and got two picks for them.
Agreed!
Now you can use that 5 million cap space to sign a player like Farabee for 5 million. lel
Yo dude my opinion is everybody’s opinion who watched our bullies turn into ladies. You are dismissed.
That’s funny. The notoriously and divisively demanding coach is held responsible for the team getting soft. I think it’s pretty clear what type of player torts was after and those were far from soft, so maybe you should dismiss yourself instead of claiming you have some kind of universally agreed upon opinion.
I don’t think you really understand just how awful Farabee has been this year.
I’m a season ticket holder and watch every game. There are multiple opinions and theories. Torts may be bad. But the coach ain’t the problem.
I don’t know of a coach past or present who could get any better results with the goaltending they have in Philly. Torts has his quirks, but this is an organizational failure.
Curious if Torts now coaches the USA team at the World Championships?
Read his quote in the article and you’ll understand.
I did read it.
How do you know that? He did nothing ever to help team and just whined and yelled like a 3 year old. Good riddance jerk.
Young players don’t need a torts. Terrible terrible coach and good riddance.
By law, I have to be a Lindy Ruff fan. But the Sabres haven’t responded well to his style. If Torts isn’t signed somewhere by Oct. I could envision him behind Buffalo’s bench – ideally as an assistant.
Torts had great success coaching Buffalo’s farm team in the last millennium.
GET LOST
Torts is only the tip of the iceberg. Hextall was fired as GM because his rebuild efforts were too slow. Is Briere faster?? Let’s stop giving exec jobs to ex players. The only ex players under age 75 never won anything.
Sakic?
Rob Blake? Craig Conroy? Bill Guerin?
Then there is Yzerman…sooo…
Yes, they should hire the best people at the best place instead of ex-players; just thinking about it is obvious. Jones president? Are they kidding?
These players WON CUPS. And #2, they aren’t employed by the Flyers
Misunderstood what you were saying
Thank god. He was horrible and did nothing to improve team.
The management of Brière and Jones is horrible. They continue with a group that has never won, instead of tearing everything down and rebuilding. What does it mean for the Flyers to finish between 9th and 10th in the conference? When you play you play to win.
The culture of brotherly love for pally loss continues in Philly.
From the latter part of last season the Flyers were going in reverse. This rests on Tortorella. Truth is Scotty Bowman in his prime couldn’t win with this gaggle of players.
This seems contradictory. If even Bowman couldn’t win with this group, how is this then Tortz’ fault?
I’m trying to find positives to Tortorella. I can’t. Every NHL team dresses 20 players for a game. In the dressing room the coach can motivate those players to think they can skate through a brick wall and win. But watching the Flyers the other day in Chicago, the next-to-worst team in the NHL, the players looked like they were going through the motions. They weren’t even phoning it in. The team quit on Tortorella. There’s no doubt in my mind Torts ran off Cutter Gauthier with his image and reputation and the player the Flyers got in return, Jamie Drysdale, is a dud.
He gave his bosses no other choice….
Torts will definitely surface again with a new team in 25/26 as NHL owners only hire recycled old coaches to be new coaches for their teams.
1-11 in his last twelve games left briere no choice .. should have happened when he closed out last season 2-9
Someone please hire him asap! The NHL is a better place with Torts around.
Future associate head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
It is what it is.
Any time there is a “Torts” headline, it is a guarantee that the usual suspects will show up yelling and screaming, whether it be about Tortorella, or at each other. When “Fired” is added to the headline, the clan tends to up its game. Boys, once again you delivered. Well done!
..and doghockey providing nothing to the conversation, as is tradition
How did Wilf 1.0 / usKesler get the gate but this guy remains?
I think they’re the same person with a split personality.
It’s a bad organization. It just is. That is the crux of the problem in Philadelphia. There are organizational hiccups peppered throughout the team. Same goaltending coach since forever despite Philly’s crappy goaltending being a meme for twenty plus years now. ANOTHER team banking on Torts to turn things around, ignoring that it always ends up in tragedy, with the team taking a step back.
Torts can’t be a head coach in today’s league. It has nothing to do with “soft players” and everything to do with high-functioning professionals not wanting to get spoken to like they’re children by some guy who longs for the better days, while doing little for them currently. Of course it was going to end this way.
Buffalo needs Torts.
Death, taxes, Torts getting fired.
Give the important jobs to ex-players with no experience and expect success from the coach. Didn’t work. Now they’ll hire Tocchet and abort the rebuild.
Do I see a return to Rangers when Lavolette is booted for not making playoffs. Crazier things have happened in the NHL.
Nope. There would be a mutiny among the players. He’s a solid 1 year coach. He’s the guy you hire, knowing you’ll fire him in a year or two, to remind the players you can make their life a living hell if they don’t step up, otherwise he’ll be around longer.