Photo Credit: Our very own Rob Windfelder
“t’s the f..kin Philadelphia Flyers. The first time I went over the Walt Whitman Bridge, I’ve been stuck here in Voorhees, it’s f..kin Philly. I got so f..kin excited.,” Flyers Head Coach John Tortorella emphatically said during his first presser
If this can’t pump up a team, I don’t know what will. The quote above reminds me of Herb Brooks talking to his American team before playing the Russian team “Tonight is your night, there night is done,” and the rest is history.. Tortorella gets it, and he’s trying to build a connection with the fanbase of Philadelphia. The Flyers hired a former Stanley Cup winning Head Coach John Tortorella to a four year deal, worth $16 million. Some forget he won a Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning back in the 2003-04 season.
Tortorella is known to be a hard-nosed coach, who commands the most from his players. He is not afraid of benching or calling out star studded players either. Each and every player has to fight to stay within the lineup, and for Tortorella’s efforts he finished 12th in the Jack Adams voting yesterday for Coach of the Year.
It’s become apparent as some have excelled, and some have had difficulties learning this, but on most nights the Flyers do not have a problem with effort. The team may not be talented enough to beat stiff competition or playoff bound teams on a nightly basis, but they do fight and claw their way into games nine times out of 10, “I’m not gonna stand up here all year long and talk about moral victories,” John Tortorella said following a loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. “But I’ve got to goddamn remember where we are, as far as where we are in the organization, and the process that we are at. I’m certainly not gonna boo the team. I’m gonna try to help them.”
What isn’t brought up much is how much he cares about the players. Maybe it’s not a big story, maybe it’s not the big thing, but he really does care about these players. And that is evident after he was seen patting Morgan Frost on the back after a few tough shifts into his return into the lineup following a benching earlier in the season in 2022-23. Tortorella is a smart guy, he sensed that Frost was trying to do too much and getting frustrated, so he came over and calmed him down. Believe it or not from that point on Frost was a much different player in a good way following that incident.
Tortorella and the players equally deserve blame for the monumental collapse towards the latter part of the season. It’s not just one person, it’s all. Torts didn’t lose the room, especially when the effort was there like it was against the Buffalo Sabres. He has done a great job with effort all season.
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The team gave effort, that doesn’t correlate with the narrative that he lost the locker room. If he lost the locker room, then the team wouldn’t give effort. This was just a pure collapse, and in the grand scheme of things the team wasn’t supposed to be this good at this stage of the rebuild.
Remember the Flyers former number one Goaltender Carter Hart was arrested for his role in a sexual assault from the 2018 Hockey Canada sexual assault, thus being forced to play Samuel Ersson into the ground. In addition, they truly lack high-end talent, and the Power Play was abysmal. Through all of this, this team remained in the playoff hunt somehow, and that was done to terrific coaching and a front office that has a vision.
