Philadelphia Flyers
Flyers, Torts Agree to Terms; Team Paying About $9M to 2 Coaches Next Season
The Philadelphia Flyers and John Tortorella agreed to a contract Thursday, and it will be officially announced Friday, a source confirmed.
Kevin Weekes of ESPN reported that the contract was “in the neighborhood” of four years and $4 million per season. That means the Flyers will be paying about $9 million for their head coach in 2022-23, including $5 million for Alain Vigneault, who was fired early last season with almost three years left on his contract.
Hey, Comcast has deep pockets.
The almost-64-year-old Tortorella has a difficult task as he will try to turn around a team that went 25-46-11 (61 points) last season. Granted, the Flyers had lots of key injuries to players like Ryan Ellis, Sean Couturier, and Kevin Hayes. But even with good health, the Philadelphia Flyers would have only been good enough to battle for the last wild-card spot.
So GM Chuck Fletcher has lots of work to do and doesn’t have much cap space.
PHN: Five Reasons Torts Would or Would Not be a Good Hire by the Flyers
Tortorella, who will be introduced in a Zoom call with reporters Friday, has done well after taking over a new team, but it has generally taken him a few years to produce very good results.
In his second full season with Tampa Bay in 2002-03, the Bolts went 36-25-16 and finished first in the Southeast Division. The Lighting won the Cup in Tortorella’s third full season.
In his third full season with the New York Rangers, the Blueshirts went 51-24-7, won the Atlantic Division and lost in the conference finals to New Jersey.
The Blue Jackets compiled a 50-24-8 record in Tortorella’s second year in Columbus, but lost in the opening playoff round.
Before taking the Columbus job, Tortorella spent one uneventful year in Vancouver — its 36-35-11 record was its worst in 14 years, and the Canucks had the lowest, full-season goal output in their four-plus decade existence — and was fired.
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I’m actually looking forward to John Tortorella becoming the next HC for the Comcast Flyers. I preferred hiring Barry Trotz or Rikard Gronberg (but I never thought that the Flyers front office of dinosaurs would approve a Swedish coach). The story about the Flyers hiring a team of outside consultants to choose the HC makes me wonder why Fletcher is still the GM,( why not fire Fletcher before the draft?). If the front office is grooming Dan Briere to become the next GM, why not start now? Fire Fletcher, and move forward with Danny B. & Torts!
It’ll be interesting seeing Torts destroy the country club atmosphere that has been around that team for the past decade. If the players whine and complain, they won’t play…..and they’ll be called out for it! It’s about f*cking time!
It is going to take a lot more than Torts to turn Flyers around. They need all star young studs, at least three of them, pillars. They need a new GM to find them. Fletch has had five years and has not found one. I am trading Prov or York, plus Konecny, plus Frost, plus if I have to, another player (not Hart) for the first pick of the draft, or second if Wright goes first, for Slafkovsky. He is going to be a stud. That would give them two of the top five picks. I go Nemec or Jiricik with the 5th pick. Gotta do it. Gotta get bold here.
Glad to see Torts as the coach, but it does not solve the underlying issues:
Time to rebuild, not retool again.
Hire/promote a GM who can draft and create a system to develop the talent.
Won’t matter who the coach is if they stay on the same course as the past 10 years.
Well said, John.
Sam…rumors that we offered Trotz $7 million a year and he turned it down. Hear anything?
Fletcher claims Tortorella was his top choice all along.