© Eric Hartline/Imagn
The Philadelphia Flyers made the shocking call to cut ties with legendary coach John Tortorella on Thursday with just nine games remaining in the 2024-25 NHL season. The Flyers had been floundering and Tortorella’s admission that he didn’t know how to coach the team certainly didn’t help his case. But, the fact that Philly didn’t let him see out the remainder of the season still shocked those in the hockey world.
Now, however, it seems we may have found out the reason why. In the game before Tortorella’s dismissal, the 66-year-old head coach decided to bench Flyers defenseman Cam York for the final 50 minutes of a 7-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Tortorella and York had not seen eye to eye in the week or so leading up to the game and Tortorella scratched the former first-round pick a couple weeks prior. As it turns out, they never did get back on the same page.
Told from a team source that “it’s fair to say” something happened between Cam York and John Tortorella in Toronto, that contributed to the coach’s dismissal on Thursday morning. Was put to me that “they probably both crossed the line.”
— Kevin Kurz (@KKurzNHL) March 28, 2025
Kevin Kurz of The Athletic reports that Tortorella and York were involved in an altercation in Toronto. Kurz also reports that a source said that the parties “probably both crossed the line.”
Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff then stated that the two did not have a physical altercation, but they did exchange in a “heated verbal exchange.”
The incident was so serious that interim head coach Brad Shaw (and likely Flyers GM Danny Briere and president of hockey operations Keith Jones) benched York for the entirety of Thursday’s game against the Montreal Canadiens. The move yet again left Philadelphia shorthanded. The Flyers have no remaining call-ups for the 2024-25 NHL season and Seravalli reports that Philadelphia could not scratch York because NHL rules dictate that a team cannot voluntarily play shorthanded.
However, the move did not hurt the Flyers. Instead, Philadelphia responded with a 6-4 win over Montreal, including two goals from captain Sean Couturier and rookie star Matvei Michkov, both of whom had prior run-ins with Tortorella.