Flyers general manager Danny Briere discussed the decision to fire head coach John Tortorella.
John Tortorella looked like a beaten-down man, a defeated coach who could no longer stomach the losses.
His Flyers had just gotten rolled by the Maple Leafs, 7-2, in Toronto, the home of the Hockey Hall of Fame, where the spotlight is bright. It was the 11th loss in the last 12 games of a full-on rebuilding finish to this 2024-25 season.
Tortorella knew why the Flyers traded five players in the span of five weeks. He knew the goaltending was a project. He knew the Flyers were focused on the offseason and the long game. But on Tuesday night, he appeared at a loss.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
And Danny Briere probably understood why.
The Flyers are rebuilding, yes, but the losing had become too much and so did the concerns that paired with it.
It was time for change.
Tortorella was fired Thursday morning with nine games left in his third season as the club's head coach.
Philadelphia Flyers
Find the latest Philadelphia Flyers news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Philadelphia.
"That's the toughest part of the rebuild, is going through this," Briere said. "I really hope that this is the bottom, this is rock bottom for us, today, and this is the turnaround."
The Flyers' general manager said the losses piling up were taking a toll on everyone. That, of course, included Tortorella, a 66-year-old coach with a true fire for winning.
"He hates losing more than probably anybody we know," Briere said. "I hope moving forward, and I have the feeling that moving forward now, it's going to start to get better. It's not going to be an overnight thing, it's going to take time, but I feel we're stepping into a different phase of the rebuild."
After making a surprise playoff push last season, the Flyers were chasing this season and never really felt in it, so Briere acted accordingly ahead of the trade deadline. As a result, coming into Thursday, the Flyers had the Eastern Conference's second-to-worst record.
"I felt it was time," Briere said. "It's not one thing, it's a series of things that have happened, probably a little bit more in the last three weeks, it escalated since probably around the trade deadline, right after that."
Briere thanked Tortorella for putting the Flyers' standard back in place. The coach very much had a chair at the table with the club's decision-makers. The Flyers valued his insight.
"We both have opinions," Briere said. "It doesn't mean that mine are better than is, I don't want to get into that. We just had some different opinions on different things.
"Torts is a complicated man, he's a complicated coach. He's a blast to work with because he challenges you. I truly believe he made me a better GM. I loved working with him and I think he loved working with me. He's not a yes man and he had opinions."
With Brad Shaw serving as the interim head coach over the final nine games, the Flyers will evaluate the rest of the way. Briere and president of hockey operations Keith Jones are set to make their first head coaching hire.
Time will tell what they want in their bench boss.
"I'm not sure exactly what we're going to be looking for in a coach," Briere said. "One thing I can tell you is we have a young team, a coach that can teach is going to be important."