Cam York sat for ‘disciplinary issue’ that ‘crossed the line’

Young defenseman Cam York sat on the bench for the entirety of the Flyers’ game against the Canadiens Thursday night. Now, we know why.

The Philadelphia Flyers fired John Tortorella Thursday morning but it has some competition for the most peculiar thing surrounding this hockey team that happened that day.

In the first game in almost three years without the veteran coach behind the bench, the Flyers hosted the Montreal Canadiens — a team vying for some playoff certainty — and ended up beating them 6-4 in a fairly decisive win that got some good feelings back in Philadelphia. Top players scoring, Matvei Michkov looks untouchable, and the team was able to outscore their goaltending woes.

A typical win barring one thing: Defenseman Cam York didn’t step out on to the ice. Now, it wouldn’t be outrageous to view York as a healthy scratch. Tortorella did it in the past and interim head coach Brad Shaw had some say in the matter so it wouldn’t be completely out of the blue for it to still happen with Tortorella gone and Shaw in charge. But, it wasn’t a healthy scratch. York dressed, was in the lineup, sat on the bench, but did not even play one second of hockey Thursday night.

It left a whole lot of people with a whole lot of questions and Shaw quickly gave some light to the issue, but it might have just created more unanswered questions.

“It was just a disciplinary issue,” he explained after the game. “I’m not going to go beyond that.”

Shaw rejected a follow-up question about whether or not it was something that he did in Toronto, but did confirm that York will be back in the lineup (and actually on the ice) for the game against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.

After the dust settled, The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz reported that the issue that caused York to be sat in somewhat embarrassing fashion, was something between the young defenseman and Tortorella in Toronto and it “crossed the line”.

Told from a team source that "it's fair to say" something happened between Cam York and John Tortorella in Toronto, that contributed to the coach's dismissal on Thursday morning. Was put to me that "they probably both crossed the line."

— Kevin Kurz (@KKurzNHL) March 28, 2025

After playing soft on a goal against in Toronto, York was promptly sat by Tortorella for the last 50 minutes of the game. Eighty percent of Tuesday’s hockey game, one of the better Flyers defensemen just sat on the bench not playing. And if we are reading the Kurz report correctly, something must have happened after that happened or maybe even during the game.

Tortorella has been known to admit when he pushes some accountability actions too far. He previously benched Michkov for an entire game and then after the game said it should’ve been just a period. So, to try to not stir things up even more, we can only assume that it was either York confronting Tortorella about his benching during one of the intermissions in Toronto, or it was a heated discussion after the game.

No details were provided on what was said — and we probably will never get them — but for it to cause such a shakeup that led to Tortorella being fired with just nine games left in the season, and then for York to just sit on the bench without a stick; there must have been some harsh words thrown each other’s way.

The Flyers have just 12 forwards and six defensemen who are healthy enough to play in games. In any normal circumstance where the team would be carrying extra players, York would have been a healthy scratch, and this wouldn’t have caused such an uproar powered by curiosity. The team clearly could not have iced just five blueliners, especially in case one of them gets injured and suddenly you’re dealing with a crisis, so York just sat there ready to play in case of emergency, but among all his teammates.

Tortorella lost his job — albeit, he might have lost his job this summer anyways — because of what happened between him and York. Now, we only have to question if what happened was so bad from York that the team wants to move on from the young defenseman as well.

It is never not boring with the Philadelphia Flyers.