PHILADELPHIA — Next season, the Flyers will welcome a new head coach behind the bench with a demeanor as fiery as their fans’ passion for the team.
The Flyers officially came to an agreement on Thursday with John Tortorella to be the franchise’s 23rd head coach (including interims), a source confirmed to The Philadelphia Inquirer. The terms of the deal are four years at an annual average value of $4 million. Tortorella is expected to be introduced as coach and speak with the media via Zoom on Friday.
The news of Tortorella’s hiring came less than 48 hours after ESPN reported that the team had extended Tortorella an offer on Tuesday night.
He is well-known for his confrontational style, both with his own players and with members of the media. However, his former players have praised Tortorella for his coaching, including former Blue Jackets and current Flyers winger Cam Atkinson.
At the end of the Flyers’ abysmal 2021-22 season in which they finished with a 25-46-11 record, general manager Chuck Fletcher cited coaching as an area to address in an effort to quickly turn around their shortcomings.
“This season, injuries were a big part [of the team’s failures], but we’ve got to get back,” Fletcher said. “I go back to process and hopefully with coaching and looking at a few different ways we can try to have the puck more often and not spend so much time in D-zone, make the game a little bit easier. We have a lot of opportunities here. There’s challenges, but I look at them as opportunities. We have a lot of opportunities to improve significantly in areas that will make us a better team.”
The Flyers started the 2021-22 season with Alain Vigneault as head coach, but in the midst of a 10-game losing streak that lasted from mid-November to early December, Fletcher fired him on Dec. 6. Assistant coach Mike Yeo served as interim coach for the remainder of the season. On May 3, the Flyers announced that Yeo would not return next season.
