Let the Drama Begin for John Tortorella and the Philadelphia Flyers

The 2022-2023 season is going to be a long one for the Philadelphia Flyers, so why not get the drama started early?

When the Flyers hired John Tortorella to be their next head coach, I think we all knew that there would be headlines coming out of Philadelphia in one form or another. Well, with the season still several weeks away, Philly’s new bench boss is already turning heads.

According to an article written by theScore on Thursday, Torts is less than thrilled with the situation that he has inherited in the City of Brotherly Love. Apparently, Tortorella has “major concerns” about his team and perhaps the organization as a whole.

Of course, one could’ve expected as much given the recent lack of success in Philly. The Flyers have qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs only once in the last four seasons, and since appearing in the Stanley Cup Final in 2010, the franchise has won a total of three playoff series.

Tortorella is already creating waves as the Flyers’ head coach.

Last season, Philadelphia finished dead last in the Metropolitan Division, finishing the year with a 25-46-11 record. It’s no secret that there’s work to do this season.

This is a time of change for the Flyers with a new coach in the building and, as the article mentions, no captain in place after last season’s trade deadline move to ship long-time captain Claude Giroux out of town.

In an Eastern Conference that projects to be extremely competitive, the Flyers will likely make more headlines for losses and sound bites from their first-year coach than for wins or being in any type of race for the playoffs.

With that in mind, it is only fitting that in the early stages of September, Torts would already be getting people’s attention.

To me, this season will be a perfect mess for Philadelphia. The organization has an underwhelming team and an old-school coach in a new-school age, which seems like the formula for a dysfunctional and uninspiring season.

You never know what can happen until the season actually begins. Maybe, just maybe, this season won’t be a lost cause for the Flyers. I can’t buy that though, and I expect many more “wait, what’s going on in Philadelphia?”-type stories in the next several months.