John Tortorella saw the writing on the wall for his tenure with the Philadelphia Flyers. The team had underachieved with him at the helm, which unfortunately, cost his assistants their jobs as well. The Flyers announced today that the club will not retain the services of Assistant Coaches Rocky Thompson and Darryl Williams and the club’s Assistant Coach/Skills, Angelo Ricci. The future of the Flyers’ interim head coach, Brad Shaw, remains unclear, but he hasn’t been let go yet.
“I would like to thank Darryl, Rocky, and Angelo for their dedication and all of their efforts over the last several years to the Flyers organization,” said general manager Daniel Briere. “After careful evaluation, I felt that this was best for the future direction of the team.”
Shaw and the goaltender coach, Kim Dillabaugh, are still on the staff. Briere will likely explore some different avenues before committing to Shaw long-term, but he is in the running to have the interim tag lifted. In limited time with the team, Shaw seemed to have them playing a looser style, which isn’t surprising after switching from Tortorella.
Brad Shaw’s debut as Flyers’ interim head coach
Shaw was 5-3-1 after Tortorella’s tenure with the Flyers ended. It was the best-case scenario for Philadelphia, as they performed well under Shaw but still got the fourth-best odds for the draft lottery. The worry when Shaw took over was that he’d give the team a boost and move too far up in the standings, but those worries proved wrong.
Shaw’s success with the Flyers puts them in an interesting predicament. The new coach bump is real, as it’s happened countless times when a new coach comes in and gets a struggling team some wins. Briere must now decide if he wants to take off the interim tag and risk whether that success is a product of the bump or a sustainable trend.
Tortorella’s departure with nine games remaining didn’t give the Flyers enough time to evaluate the head coach position properly, but they’ve seen enough from their assistant coaches. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a decision about Shaw come sooner rather than later.
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