Flyers GM's 'rock bottom' message after John Tortorella firing
03/27/2025 10:27 PM
The Philadelphia Flyers fired head coach John Tortorella on Thursday morning. The Flyers are looking for a new coach after a brutal season that likely ends without postseason hockey once again. After Philadelphia’s late-season collapse last year, expectations were higher in 2024-25. However, general manager Daniel Briere did not feel as if those expectations were met.
The Flyers general manager spoke with reporters after Tortorella’s firing was made official. He spoke about why the team decided to move on from the veteran bench boss. But he also dropped a rather eye-opening admission about where his team is at in their rebuild. “I really hope that this is the bottom,” Briere said, via NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman. “This is rock bottom for us today, and this is the turnaround.”
The franchise hired Tortorella before the 2022-23 campaign. He amassed a record of 97-107-33 in parts of three seasons with the Flyers. His best season came in 2023-24, when they nearly made the Stanley Cup Playoffs. However, as mentioned, Philadelphia suffered a late-season collapse that saw them miss out on the postseason entirely.
Why Flyers’ Daniel Briere fired John Tortorella
Tortorella’s hiring made a ton of sense. He is an experienced coach with a Stanley Cup championship under his belt. He could be the sort of voice a young team such as Philadelphia needs to take the next step. Unfortunately, they never took the next step. And at times, it appeared as if Tortorella lost the Flyers locker room. As a result, it was simply time to move on.
“You’re going to ask me, is there 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, right after that. So like I said, it’s not one thing specific. It’s an accumulation [of things] that have happened, probably more often lately,” the Flyers general manager said, via Kimelman.
Philadelphia kicked off the post-Tortorella era on a positive note. They defeated the Montreal Canadiens by a score of 6-4 at home. The Flyers will look to make it two wins in a row when they take on the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday afternoon.
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