John Tortorella relieved as Flyers coach; Brad Shaw named interim coach
As first reported by Daily Faceoff’s Anthony Di Marco, the Philadelphia Flyers have relieved John Tortorella as head coach.
Brad Shaw, who previously served as the associate coach, will serve as the interim coach to close out the 2024-25 season.
Hearing John Tortorella is out in Philly.@DailyFaceoff
— Anthony Di Marco (@ADiMarco25) March 27, 2025The move comes just two days after Tortorella made comments about the Flyers’ future and how he didn’t know how to coach the team in a rebuilding.
“I’m not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season, where we’re at right now,” Tortorella told the media in Toronto on Tuesday.
Tortorella coached the Flyers to a 28-36-9 record through 73 games in 2024-25. The team sits second last in the Eastern Conference and is currently 1-8-1 over the past 10 games. But big moves prior to the trade deadline – including trading Scott Laughton, Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost, among others – left the team in a sense of disarray heading down the stretch.
Tortorella never made the Stanley Cup playoffs as coach of the Flyers in his three seasons there as the team kept retooling for the future. Tortorella has made the playoffs 12 times in his career, winning the Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay in 2004. He has won three playoff round victories since, which was highlighted by a trip to the Eastern Conference final in 2011-12 with the New York Rangers.
“Today I made the very difficult decision to move on from John as our head coach,” Flyers GM Daniel Briere said in a team statement. “John played a vital role in our rebuild. He set a standard of play and re-established what it means to be a Philadelphia Flyer. John’s passion on the bench was only equaled by his charitable work in our community. As we move into the next chapter of this rebuild, I felt this was the best for our team to move forward. I’d like to thank John for his tireless work and commitment to the Flyers.”
Shaw gets his first NHL coaching gig since going 18-18-4 during the 2005-06 season with the New York Islanders. Before becoming a coach, he had 159 points in 377 NHL games between 1985-99. Shaw has been with the Flyers as an associate coach since 2022, having served stints in St. Louis, Columbus and Vancouver. He also served as an assistant coach with Italy as part of the 2022 Olympic qualification tournament.