Prominent NHL Head Coach Fired On Thursday Morning
03/27/2025 10:20 AM
The Philadelphia Flyers moved on from head coach John Tortorella on Thursday morning.
Tortorella, 66, was let go after falling just shy of three full seasons with the Flyers. Overall, the team went 97-107-33 under his stewardship, including a current six-game losing streak. Associate head coach Brad Shaw will close out the season as interim head coach.
"Today I made the very difficult decision to move on from John as our head coach," Flyers general manager Daniel Briere said in a statement. "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 after the Flyers lost 7-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday, their 11th defeat in 12 games to fall to 28-36-9 on the season, the worst mark in the Metropolitan Division.
After the game, a frustrated Tortorella sounded like someone who was nearing the end.
"There's certainly going to be some frustration," he told reporters. "This falls on me. I am not really interested in learning how to coach 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."
The Flyers have now missed the playoffs five consecutive seasons, the franchise's longest drought since 1990-94.
We'll see if Tortorella, who won the 2004 Stanley Cup as head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning and has also guided the New York Rangers, Columbus Blue Jackets and Vancouver Canucks in his nearly three decades as a head coach, has another lead job in his future.
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