After a fairly solid performance in their first game of the season, the Flyers have fallen flat. Their goalies have let in a lot of soft goals, although it helps when the defense allows two shorthanded goals. The offense has been rather anemic. Instead of being this squad of young dynamos, they seem to be the same gang of guys who ran out of steam to end last season.
With all of this in mind, it is only natural that some of the talk would come around to Flyers' head coach John Tortorella. As is with all sports and with all teams, when a team starts to flounder, fans start to wonder if a change in management is needed. As the Eagles have been flopping, there have been calls to drop Nick Sirianni. After the Phillies failed in the postseason, some wondered aloud if Rob Thomson was the right guy to coach the Fightins. Likewise, there is an ever-growing chorus of Flyers faithful who are fed up with Tortorella and want to see him go.
The reasons make sense. He has a, shall we say, cantankerous nature about him. He can be prickly with the media. He has alienated some players in the organization, although to be fair, most of the team has done better without them. Others wonder if the constant line shuffling is stifling the team's potential offensive power.
At the same time, he has worked some magic here in Philadelphia. Under his tutelage, Travis Konecny has finally become a star. Owen Tippett is right behind him. He also took a team that nobody believed in and almost made the playoffs last season.
So...How Long Is His Leash?
I think the answer depends on how this team does. After all, Tortorella wasn't let go after the team dropped 10 games in a row. He also wasn't dismissed while the team collapsed towards the end of last year. As of right now, there haven't seemed to have been any stories of any leaked meeting with Flyers Admin about ditching him, unlike the many, many rumors of Siranni after last season.
This is a young team. The Flyers average age is 26.6. Only Buffalo, Montreal, and Utah (so weird to say), are younger. Jett Luchanko is the youngest player in the league at just a hair over 18. They are relatively inexperienced with two rookies, Luchanko and Matvei Michkov, in key roles on the team. This is a group you need to be patient with. They are learning and growing. It may take a while before they click. We just have to hope that that doesn't take too long like it did during Tortorella's first season in Philly. Because of this, and because he has the confidence of GM Daniel Briere, his job should be safe.
However...
There is another side to that coin. What if the team tunes him out? At some point, the Flyers players tuned out Alain Vigneault. The Eagles tuned out Doug Pedersen not long after winning the Super Bowl. And Thomson took the Phillies to the World Series in the same season that they fired Joe Girardi, a coach who couldn't reach the players. If he loses the clubhouse and the respect of the players, he's toast.
The Flyers also have a history of canning coaches midseason. Ken Hitchcock was fired after eight games in 2006. Peter Laviolette was fired after three games in 2013. However, those were under different regimes in different eras.
If the axe falls during the season, December is the time. In Flyers history, December is doomsday for a struggling coach. Paul Holmgren, Craig Ramsay, John Stevens, Dave Hakstol, and the aforementioned Vigneault have all been terminated in December. For that to happen, the Flyers will have to keep playing poorly.
For right now, Tortorella's job would seem to be secure. However, this team does need to turn a corner to ensure that. Tortorella has gotten a lot out of these players in the past. There is no reason to think that he can't do that again. It's a long season. Teams that have started cold in the past have roared back and gone deep in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Teams that have started hot have cooled off (see Flyers, last year).
As with all things, nothing is permanent. At some point, Tortorella will not be the head coach of the Flyers anymore. Will it be due to his retirement or his release? That's for the future to decide