Just over a month after being fired by the Philadelphia Flyers, John Tortorella has found himself back with a job in the NHL and it’s with a team he is very familiar with.
According to ESPN’s Emily Kaplan, the former Flyers coach and long-time veteran bench boss is going to be joining the New York Rangers. The specific role is unknown at the time of writing, but he should provide a strong voice for a team that just wants to squeeze whatever is left out of their roster.
Of course, Tortorella is not joining the Rangers all alone. Mike Sullivan, just days removed since parting ways with the Pittsburgh Penguins after spending a decade in that organization and winning two Stanley Cups, is going to be named Rangers head coach, seemingly in the coming days. Of course, these two are not unfamiliar with working in Madison Square Garden together.
When Tortorella was the Rangers head coach from 2009 to 2013, Sullivan served as his assistant and the partnership would continue in the single year that Tortorella was the Vancouver Canucks’ head coach as well, before Sullivan would be hired by the Penguins. Now, those two are reunited at a team that is just so desperate to try to make anything of this aging roster and failson prospects.
This could have theoretically been the setup in Philadelphia, before Tortorella pulled some very Tortorella moves (mainly, getting in such a heated argument with Cam York that he told the defenseman that if he would re-sign with the team, he would barely play him). If the veteran bench boss would have moved on from his head coaching role this summer, we could have realistically seen him move into more of an advisory role as his recently unemployed friend Mike Sullivan came in to lead the Flyers. It’s not too far fetched.
But now they are going to be doing whatever they’re about to do in New York. If Tortorella is Sullivan’s assistant, it would be nice to see some freakouts on the bench not happen behind some Flyers. But if the 66-year-old just goes upstairs to make his opinion known about some players, then we will be losing some peak entertainment.
For the Flyers, they will be moving on, replacing Tortorella and it could be sooner rather than later. According to recent reports, they have already interviewed Western Michigan Broncos head coach Pat Ferschweiler for the job, fresh off winning the national championship. Rick Tocchet is another name that has been heavily linked to the Flyers, and it is a possiblity that Brad Shaw could just have his interim tag removed. Philadelphia has at least started its search for a new head coach after a couple weeks of silence.