John Tortorella Warns of More Flyers Trades: ‘You just can’t fall in love’

The Philadelphia Flyers find themselves in a precarious position as January winds to a close.

On one hand, the Flyers have pulverized all expectations of them, sitting ninth in the NHL standings through their first 45 games of the season. On the other hand, this was supposed to be a rebuilding season that featured the integration of several young players, along with acquiring more draft capital. Bobby Brink, Tyson Foerster, Cam York, and Egor Zamula have each established themselves as NHL regulars, but all but York have had to fight for ice time regularly.

Based on Flyers head coach John Tortorella’s recent comments, it would seem at least one more Flyers trade is on the horizon. Tortorella sat down with NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Ashlyn Sullivan, discussing a few different topics in a short interview. To watch the full interview with Ashlyn and ‘Torts’, click here.

“I watched a team – I won’t name the team – I watched a team sign a big-name player that just started their rebuild and kind of changed their thoughts about how to do it,” Tortorella said. “We need to go each and every step. It’s not about signing big names. It’s about developing our own.”

“Just made a great trade in a 21-year-old defenseman [Jamie Drysdale], full of skill; perfect timing. We got to keep building our own, and maybe a couple years down the road, that’s maybe [when] you look at free agents. But, we got to do our own work with our guys and our draft picks and continue to gain those assets to keep on building this team.”

Gaining assets, you say? The Flyers coach did take the time to explain what that means a little bit further.

“My expectation is – and I told the players this – come to work every day ready to go. I said, ‘I don’t want you to come here thinking about just getting through practice; I want you to practice the right way.’ That’s all we can do. Everything else will take care of itself, and it’ll take care of the speed of the rebuild too,” Tortorella continued. “There’s going to be some people probably upset come [NHL trade] deadline, too, when we have to make some moves here because of where we’re at in the process. We’ve had some conversations – Jonesy, Danny, and I – and, you do; you almost get a little emotional about it because we’re talking about people right now, as far as age-wise, contract-wise, and all that.”

“And in that meeting, I said ‘You just can’t fall in love’,” Tortorella concluded. “You can’t because if you do, it’s going to set you back. We’ve got to look at the organizational view of how to do this. You’ll be friends with that player if you like him that much. You’ll be friends and you’re gonna care about him the rest of your life, but there has to be– there’s going to be some tough decisions coming along here. So, we gotta be really careful to not let our emotions get in the way of making the proper decision for the team.”

To me, that sure sounds like there are some Flyers trades brewing behind the scenes.

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