Early Trading: Coaches to monitor after Tortorella fired by Flyers

GINO REDA: Two days after a frustrated John Tortorella said, “I’m not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season,” the Flyers fired their head coach. To speak to that, here’s our Insider, Pierre LeBrun.

Pierre, there’s no way the Flyers fired Tortorella for that one comment alone, but given where the organization is in its rebuild, if Tortorella doesn’t want to coach this sort of group, did that make his firing inevitable?

PIERRE LeBRUN: It was certainly part of it, Gino. Let me walk you through this because it’s been a wild couple of days with the Philadelphia Flyers.

I, myself, on Tuesday morning, at the morning skates for the Flyers [who] played the Leafs, had an interview with Daniel Briere. I asked him about John Tortorella’s future, and at the time, Briere, what he said was he was going to sit down with John Tortorella after the season and see how he felt mentally, physically. We know John Tortorella is 66, but has another year on his deal.

And so that was it, there was no sense at the time that anything was coming here anytime soon, if at all. But it just shows you how quickly and dramatically this story and this situation changed over the last 48 hours.

Yes, the postgame comments after the loss to Toronto were part of it, but I’m also told via sources that there was also comments from Tortorella with management behind the scenes in the last 24 hours that ultimately forced the hand of Danny Briere and Keith Jones and the management group there in Philly to decide to fire John Tortorella.

I don’t know if you want to call it a mercy fire in some ways, Gino, but the sense is that some of the things that were said both postgame, publicly, but also I think behind the scenes, led to this fire.

Again, let me be clear, this was never the gameplan for Danny Briere and Keith Jones. They wanted to wait until the season was over to meet with Tortorella and figure out the future, but it feels like their hand was forced here.

So, again, fascinating. Including the fact that Tortorella, himself, even as of Tuesday morning, telling the media that he understood the rebuild and why they had to trade away players and that the rest of the season was going to be difficult.

It really goes to show you how quickly this escalated between Tuesday morning to Thursday morning.

REDA: It’s really interesting, though now we start to wonder where the Flyers go from here. Who’s out there? Who’s available? Who’s on the latter part of their coaching contract?

I want to start with Rick Tocchet. He spent part of 11 seasons playing in Philly. He’s a legend in that city. The Vancouver Canucks, you and I were at the GM meetings last week, said they desperately want to extend Rick Tocchet. They want to keep him.

Does this put a fly in the ointment, though, looking forward?

LeBRUN: I don’t think it affects anything that’s going on right now with Rick Tocchet because, you’re right, ever since I quoted Patrik Allvin last week saying they wanted to extend Rick Tocchet sooner rather than later – I know that our colleague Iain MacIntyre in Vancouver asked Tocchet about it, and Tocchet said he wanted to wait until after the season, Geno, to deal with that because of the playoff race right now. That’s understandable, the Canucks have bigger fish to fry right now.

But the reality is, Rick Tocchet is the one coach, the single coach in the NHL right now, on an expiring deal. Now, there is an option year attached to that, so whether or not that matters, we’ll see. But he is the one pending UFA in the coaching world and a lot of people are wondering, well, where is this going to go?

I think it can go a couple of different ways. Maybe Tocchet, after the year, does decide to sign with the Canucks, or does he throw his hat in the ring and hit the free agent coaching ranks. Time will tell.

Obviously, his Flyers roots will make him a hot name to be rumoured about with the Flyers’ coaching search. I think you can throw out other names as well.

The Flyers have not commenced a search, I can tell you. They’re going to wait until after the year, I think, to get more into it. But, Joel Quenneville was cleared to coach again in the NHL last July. Does he become part of it?

David Carle is a hot name after the last two World Juniors, right? University of Denver coach. So, I think you’re going to see a lot of names but the Flyers are in no hurry here. They want to take their time and have a thorough search. 

And by the way, I should say that [interim head coach] Brad Shaw as well, will be considered a candidate for the Flyers.

REDA: Now, also looking forward, once we get through the end of this regular season, there are going to be a number of coaches going into the final year of their current contracts with NHL teams. Does that make them potential candidates for the Flyers since they only have one year left on their deals after this?

LeBRUN: Right. Well, let’s start with the two guys on interim tags first. One is Joe Sacco in Boston, the other is Anders Sorensen in Chicago. Both of those teams have to decide what they’re doing with their interim coaches, right?

I was told this week that, in each case, the Bruins and the Blackhawks want to wait until the end of the regular season and then re-evaluate that situation with each coach. So that’s where those things are at, to be determined.

Now you have a group of seven coaches around the league to have one more year on their deal through next season, through 2025-26.

You have Greg Cronin in Anaheim, Lindy Ruff in Buffalo, Ryan Huska in Calgary, Peter DeBoer in Dallas, Kris Knoblauch in Edmonton, Peter Laviolette with the Rangers, and Jon Cooper in Tampa.

Now, obviously some of these guys, they’re not too worried about job security. Jon Cooper, best coach in the league, he’ll write his own ticket whenever he wants. But he is up after next year.

Peter DeBoer has been an amazing fit in Dallas, don’t think he’s too worried about the future. But there’s some interesting names here.

One is Lindy Ruff. It’s been a tough year in Buffalo. He was quoted this week saying he would like to come back for that final year on his deal, and I was told today that that is the intention of Kevyn Adams, that he would like to bring Lindy Ruff back. So, check that one off.

I think the other obvious name to touch on here, Gino, has to be Laviolette. The Rangers were a Stanley Cup pick from a lot of people back in September, Gino. They might miss the playoffs, and if they do, what does that mean for Laviolette?

I don’t have a hard read on that situation, only to suggest he can’t discount the possibility if they miss the playoffs that maybe, maybe he pays the price. We’ll see.

REDA: The coaching carousel is always an interesting one to watch.

That’s the early edition of Insider Trading. Pierre and C.J. are going to have the full version of IT coming up on the early edition of SportsCentre.