It's not always easy to determine if and when a team has quit on their coach. Observers of the Philadelphia Flyers have no such uncertainty. After allowing six unanswered goals in Toronto on Tuesday, Philly's 7-2 defeat was their 11th in the past 12, and only a couple of those losses featured anything positive to build on. This is rock bottom.
Buried under the local success of the Phillies and Eagles and the drama of the 76ers, the Flyers are about to quietly miss the playoffs for the fifth straight year. Bubble postseason excluded, they have won exactly one second-round game since they lost in the Stanley Cup Final all the way back in 2010. These guys aren't just off in the wilderness without a map; they're spinning their wheels in mud. And it'll be someone else who attempts to get them back on the road, as the franchise announced today that they have fired head coach John Tortorella and named an interim to handle the meaningless last few contests. You could see the writing on the wall in the postgame after the Leafs loss, where the dead coach walking didn't even bother to critique his players for their performance.
“I’m not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season, where we’re at right now," he said. "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 left ESPN to take over for the 2022–23 season after Alain Vigneault failed to deliver on the promise of that COVID run. In the popular imagination, Torts is an old-school, no-nonsense ass-kicker who can motivate a group until his shtick gets stale, and he absolutely gave the team a boost at first. He oversaw a notable improvement in points in his first year, and in his second, Philly overachieved until getting the wind knocked out of them in the back stretch of the season. When they won, they did so while staying true to Torts's tough-guy image—a trustworthy, shot-blocking defense driving things—but it was glaring that they lacked a major-league goalie. They also didn't possess the high-level skill to finish consistently at the other end. None of this was sustainable with the roster on hand.
The front office never gave Tortorella much assistance, but they did snag Matvei Michkov in the draft, and this year he came to America to join a young forward core with some potential. He debuted with 20 goals and counting, currently sitting second on the team in points. But the dynamic never felt right between him and Tortorella, who kept Michkov's playing time relatively limited and determinedly punished him for defensive lapses. From one perspective, you could argue that Michkov is only 20 years old and still needs to learn the finer points of NHL play, even if it's by watching from the bench. But sometimes it felt like the coach was pushing down too forcefully on his bright young talent. The question of "How do you develop Michkov into a superstar?" should be the centerpiece of every interview this team conducts with their incoming coaching candidates.
The uncomfortable relationship with the kid and his coach is a microcosm for the Flyers as a whole—someone else needs to come in and oil up the engine. The team's goalie situation got even worse this year, and the effort and chemistry necessary to make up for it never appeared. The Flyers lost six of their first seven, and they've piled up bleak blowouts that have only gotten more common as the season has progressed. Nobody seems to want to be out there on the ice, nor behind the bench.
The Phillies open their season at 4:05 p.m. today against the Washington Nationals.
