Flyers fire John Tortorella with 9 games left in Year 3 of tenure

After undeniable regression in Year 3 under John Tortorella, the Flyers fired their head coach Thursday morning.

Associate coach Brad Shaw will take over as head coach on an interim basis. General manager Danny Briere met with the media to discuss the move before the Flyers' home game against the Canadiens.

"Today I made the very difficult decision to move on from John as our head coach," Briere said in a statement released by the team. "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."

Even though the organization had been embracing a rebuilding mindset, particularly down the stretch, it was just 28-36-9 in its third season with Tortorella behind the bench. The year prior, the Flyers had themselves in a playoff race but collapsed down the stretch.

The final straw for Tortorella may have come after a 7-2 loss Tuesday night to the Maple Leafs. Tortorella had a defeated look in front of the assembled media.

"There's certainly going to be some frustration," the head coach said to 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."

Tortorella's club dropped 11 of its last 12 games and was outscored 52-21. It won just six times in its last 25 games. The Flyers were in full-on rebuild mode after trading five players over the span of five weeks.

"The deadline was a seller's market, I thought Danny did some great things there," Tortorella said two weeks ago. "Then we're here. It sucks. But we just have to keep our eye on the ball, I have to stay patient as far as some of the things that we're probably going to go through here in the last quarter of the year, evaluate, but also try to win.

"I'm still going to teach, there are going to be certain situations that there's going to be accountability brought in. Every day there's accountability, I'm still going to go about it that way."

In an exclusive interview with NBC Sports Philadelphia's Ashlyn Sullivan a little under two weeks ago, Tortorella discussed his future with the club.

"I'm a realist, I know there's going to be a certain time when it's time for another voice and Danny's going to have to make that call," he said. "But I'm going to coach the team the way I think it should be coached, I'm not going to make decisions to try to keep my job; I'm going to make decisions to try to do the best for this organization. And when it's my time, Danny's going to let me know."

For whatever reason, the Flyers no longer resembled a tough-to-play-against team, a standard that was lost when Tortorella took over and reidentified under his leadership.

"We're just not working as a group," Travis Sanheim said in October with the Flyers off to a 2-6-1 start. "Last year, the reason we were so successful was it was five-man units, one after another, every line. We had an identity, we were working hard. Other teams knew that. Maybe I guess that's part of it, is teams are aware of our success that we had last year in doing that.

"We just need to put our heads down, go to work, get to the dirty areas. Last year, we were throwing pucks from awkward angles and getting those extra rebounds. We're just not seeing that right now. It's something that we've got to change pretty quickly because the way we're going, it's not a good path."

The Flyers had also dealt with inexperience and instability in net ever since Carter Hart's departure. The team lost its No. 1 goalie in January of last season because of the Hockey Canada sexual assault case. The Flyers entered Thursday with an NHL-low .871 save percentage this season. Last season, they finished tied with the Senators for the league's worst mark at .884.

"When Carter left, that threw this into turmoil," Tortorella said this January, similar to his comments toward the end of last season. "It is what it is, we've lived with it, we continue to live with it and we do the best we can."

Tortorella was summoned in June 2022 after the Flyers went through a disastrous, 57-loss season, one of the worst in franchise history. The old-school, straight-shooting coach did impressive work in getting the Flyers to be significantly more competitive and respected. They made a 14-point jump in his first season and then a 12-point jump in Year 2.

But the Flyers took a considerable step backward this season. They had hovered around .500, giving Briere more incentive to make changes and supplement his rebuild.

Now Briere and president of hockey operations Keith Jones are set to make their first head coaching hire.