The last-place Philadelphia Flyers fired head coach John Tortorella on Thursday with nine games remaining in his third season with the club.
“Today I made the very difficult decision to move on from John as our head coach,” 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. … As we move into the next chapter of this rebuild, I felt this was the best for our team to move forward.”
Tortorella, 66, departs with a 97-107-33 record. The Flyers (28-36-9, 65 points) have dropped 11 of their last 12 games (1-10-1) to fall into the cellar in the Metropolitan Division and are poised to miss the playoffs for a fifth consecutive season.
Only Buffalo (29-35-6, 64 points) entered Thursday with fewer points in the Eastern Conference, but the Sabres have played three fewer games than the Flyers.
Associate coach Brad Shaw, 60, will take over as the interim coach for the remainder of the season, starting with Thursday’s home game against the Montreal Canadiens.
The Flyers allowed seven goals in each of Tortorella’s final two games behind the bench.
Tortorella’s comments after Philadelphia’s 7-2 setback to the Toronto Maple Leafs drew the ire of some in the fan base.
“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,” Tortorella said. “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.”
Tortorella’s overall record as an NHL head coach is 770-648-165 with 37 ties, highlighted by a Stanley Cup-winning campaign with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2003-04. The two-time Jack Adams Award winner also has coached the New York Rangers, Vancouver Canucks and Columbus Blue Jackets.
–Field Level Media
