An incident between John Tortorella and Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Cam York this week contributed to a deteriorating relationship between coach and team that led to Tortorella’s firing on Thursday morning, a team source said.
The source said that after Tortorella benched York for the final 50 minutes of the Flyers’ game on Tuesday at Toronto, a confrontation took place between the two that did not turn physical but that “they probably both crossed the line.”
As a result, York was functionally scratched on Thursday in a victory over the Montreal Canadiens, although he sat on the bench for the entire game because the Flyers had no healthy extra players. Interim coach Brad Shaw called it a “disciplinary issue,” and the team source said the decision to sit York was made by general manager Daniel Briere, who felt the team needed to make a point with York — who is expected to return to the lineup on Saturday.
But he won’t be playing under Tortorella, who has not responded to multiple interview requests from The Athletic since his firing.
The disagreement with York, and subsequent comments that Tortorella made after the game, contributed to the coach’s firing on Thursday morning. But those two events were not isolated. Something began to shift around the trade deadline on March 7, according to the team source.
Up until then, Tortorella seemed to be on board with the moves that Briere made, as the Flyers traded respected leaders Scott Laughton and Erik Johnson, further reducing a roster that had lost top-nine forwards Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee about a month earlier. But there was a heaviness around the team stemming from some of Tortorella’s reactions in the days and weeks that followed.
A disconnect started to grow between Tortorella, the team and Flyers management, culminating on Tuesday in Toronto, where the coach’s postgame comments didn’t help his cause, either, according to the team source.
As a result, York was functionally scratched on Thursday in a victory over the Montreal Canadiens, although he sat on the bench for the entire game because the Flyers had no healthy extra players.
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