The Philadelphia Flyers were set to play their first game of the post-Tortorella era. Before the puck dropped, Flyers general manager Danny Briere spoke to the media about the organization’s decision to fire Tortorella. Briere started his presser with an opening statement summarizing why the decision was made.
“I felt it was time. It’s not one thing. It’s a series of things that have happened. Probably a little bit more in the last three weeks that escalated,” Briere stated.
There was no answer as to why this decision was made at this time. Briere said that this had all happened in the past few days and happened quickly and suddenly. There’s been a lot of speculation about Tortorella not getting along with management.
On that, Briere said, “I’m not going to get into what we dealt with. That’s not fair to Torts. We both have different opinions.” Briere also praised Tortorella for making him a better GM.
With all the moves that the Flyers have made within the past couple of months, Briere felt that the organization is at rock bottom and can only go up from here. Briere knows that this is part of the rebuild that needed to happen, and he stated that trading Sean Walker last season was the first big push due to how important he was to the defensive core.
Before the game, Briere highlighted what he had told the team: “I asked them to stick together. If you don’t feel like you’re up to it and don’t want to play tonight, think of the guy next to you. They might be up for a contract year.”
Finally, regarding Matvei Michkov, Briere felt he and Tortorella worked well together due to their competitive nature. He said, “I think Torts did a tremendous job with Matvei (Michkov).”
This decision had to be made after the comments following the blowout loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs when Tortorella stated he wasn’t interested in coaching the team that lost 11 out of their last 12 games.
The Flyers were up against the Canadians, who previously lost to the St. Louis Blues 6-1 and gave up the same amount of goals to the Flyers 6-4. Sean Couturier scored twice, and Matvei Michkov scored twice as well. However, Michkov had the opportunity to get a hat trick on the empty net but missed the goal. Michkov now leads rookies with the most goals scored this season (22), Macklin Celebrini (21) sits second, and Zack Bolduc (15) ranks third.
The energetic Flyers, however, played great offensive hockey. The Flyers had a five-person defense as Cam York, who was dressed, was benched. After the contest, interim head coach Brad Shaw stated York being benched was a disciplinary issue. He did say that York would play on Saturday. Shaw wouldn’t give any insight into what York did, but again, that calls for speculation, which isn’t a good look with everything that’s transpired over the past few days.
Many eyes are on the Flyers after Tortorella’s firing and York’s benching. While there were no concrete answers, the organization must be shifting gears. Shaw, who spent a lot of time with Tortorella as an assistant coach, now has nine games to be the head coach of the orange and black.
Shaw was emotional following the game on “his friend” losing his job. “I have yet to talk to Torts. I left a voicemail.” It doesn’t appear that Shaw will remain as the Flyers’ head coach next season, but Briere said they would look at him earlier. Shaw, who was self-aware, indicated that he would enjoy these final games.
