Despite the comments he made at the end of his tenure, John Tortorella insists he never quit on the Philadelphia Flyers… or anything else, for that matter.
Tortorella, 67, was fired by the Flyers on March 27, just two days after a 7-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs that prompted the veteran coach to say, “I’m not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season, where we’re at right now.”
But, Tortorella wanted to set the record straight on why he said what he said. In his eyes, he didn’t want to become the guy who lets everyone off easy at the end of the year because they’re miles off a playoff position.
“It was kind of weird for me, getting fired with nine games left. It really surprised me. [General manager Danny Briere] and I did have some disagreements on discipline of a player, had some disagreements the last few weeks of that season,” Tortorella told Nick Cotsonika of NHL.com. “I loved coaching them.”
One such incident of discipline handed down by Tortorella was the benching of Cam York during that game against the Maple Leafs, when the 24-year-old’s night ended after just eight shifts and 3:50 of ice time.
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York was benched by interim head coach Brad Shaw for the entirety of the following game for disciplinary purposes, too, but then things eventually blew over.
“I’ve seen teams be really good playing out a season when it means nothing. You’re relaxed. I’ve seen players play better,” added Tortorella. “I don’t want to be that guy. It was out of respect to my team that I was not doing a good job. I wasn’t. Do I think I should have got fired for it? No, but I have too much respect for those players to kick the hell out of them right to the bitter end.
“It was the right thing to do by Danny [to sell at the deadline]. They’re doing it the right way, and I was on board with that. But it’s hard. It’s hard for those guys, and that’s what I was trying to say after Toronto.”
With his team falling out of playoff position two seasons in a row, Tortorella had to cope with the departures of players like Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, Scott Laughton, and Sean Walker ahead of the last two NHL trade deadlines.
The key difference from 2024 to 2025 was that in 2025, the Flyers were never particularly close to the postseason and ultimately finished with the fourth-worst record in the NHL.
Tortorella also assured Cotsonika he wants to coach again, regardless of what others think of how things ended with the Flyers.
“Do I want to coach again? Yeah. I heard a couple NHL coaches accuse me [of quitting on the team]. Did I quit on the team after those comments I made in Toronto? I haven’t quit on a [bleeping] thing in my life. Those comments were totally taken out of [context],” Tortorella said.
“Listen, I don’t think I explained myself totally correctly, either. But I miss it already. I miss preparing [for] camp. I miss the camaraderie of camp. Yeah, I want to coach, so we’ll see what happens.”
The gruff coach’s next opportunity at the NHL level will have to wait, as all of the offseason vacancies have been filled in between his dismissal from the Flyers and now.
In the interim, Tortorella will be coaching the United States at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, where he’ll be joined by new New York Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan, Minnesota Wild head coach John Hynes, and Rangers assistant coach David Quinn.
