After finishing in Columbus, he worked as a TV pundit for a year. But coach John Tortorella couldn’t last in the studio. He preferred to take over Philadelphia, one of the worst hockey clubs in the NHL. He let the fans know before the season that he was going to be sick.
Tortorella signed a four-year, $16 million contract with Philadelphia this summer. And he immediately went to work. He talked to various members of the Flyers in turn, from general manager Chuck Fletcher to the players.
And the result? “I’m very concerned about what’s going on in the cabin,” he told Sirius XM.
It can be said that he took over Philadelphia in a desolate state. The Flyers managed just 61 points last season and finished fourth from the bottom. In some statistics, they hit rock bottom, for example in power-ups, where they did not even reach a 13 percent success rate.
They missed the playoffs for the second time in a row, the first time since the early 1990s. Overall, they played the second worst season in the club’s history. In addition, they lost long-time captain Claude Giroux, who left for a better one in exchange.
The preparation for the current season indicated that it could be even worse. Philadelphia has lost six times in seven games and scored just seven goals.
Afterwards, when Tortorella came on the Takeoff podcast with John Clarke, the team spared no expense. At one point, he was asked: “And what are the Flyers good at? Have you found something to build the team’s identity on?”
“No,” the 64-year-old coach blurted out twice. “I think we’re a bit fragmented. But that’s an important part of my job, to put all the pieces together and create some identity of our own.”
However, the overseas media does not believe Philadelphia. For example, The Athletic website predicts 77 points for her in the regular season. Stanley Cup Final Chance? Zero percent. A chance for the playoffs? Three percent. And for last place in the league? Eleven percent.
It doesn’t help the club that it has two big supports on the roster – fullback Ryan Ellis and center Sean Couturier. The first of them will probably not play this season, the second has renewed his back injury. And the Flyers don’t have many other stars.
The biggest signing of the summer was the productive but sometimes too hot-blooded fullback Tony DeAngelo. However, Tortorello doesn’t mind the absence of big names. “Everybody’s upset we didn’t bring Johnny Gaudreau,” one of them recalled. “He’s a damn good player, but it’s not yet time to bring someone like that in. We have so many other things to do than signing free hockey players who can move us to the absolute top.”
In terms of NHL games coached, Tortorella is the fourth most experienced skipper in the league today. In 2004, he won the Stanley Cup with Tampa, twice received the Jack Adams Award for the best coach, the last time five years ago.
He approaches training differently now than when he started with it. He gives hockey players more freedom: “I don’t think hockey is that complicated… It’s a very reactive game. The most important thing is for players not to get involved in half of the cases.”
“I used to explain to them: ‘When the puck is here, you go here.’ And so on. It was like I was programming them. I had a whole notebook for it,” he recalled.
“Now I see hockey in a completely different way, especially when I consider today’s athletes who can hold attention as long as an amoeba (single-celled organism, editor’s note). You might be glad to get a few minutes out of them. I’m serious. What ultimately trumps all tactical instructions is will. You can train here,” added the coach, who is known for his openness.
Will he pull Philadelphia out of the doldrums in four years? And does it even last that long? “At the moment we have zero respect in the league. Zero. If we gain at least a little bit of it, we will be on the right track,” he also declared before the regular season, which he subsequently entered with two wins.
