Flyers’ John Tortorella breaks silence on late-season collapse, plan for next year

The Philadelphia Flyers were expected to be a non-competitive part of the 2023-24 NHL season, but instead, John Tortorella’s team proved to be scrappy and a force to be reckoned with. A little over two months into the season, the Flyers sat in second in the Metropolitan Division with an 18-10-3 record. The Flyers then hit their first major of skid around Christmas and New Year’s; the team won just one game and earned five points over seven games from Dec. 21 to Jan. 4.

The Flyers bounced back in a big way, though, winning five straight in mid-January to return to second place in the Metro. But the seesaw continued and Philadelphia dropped five straight games in regulation heading into the NHL All-Star break in late January, at which time the Flyers still held on to third place in their division.

Coming out of the break, Philly won four straight before experiencing more than a month without a streak of more than two wins or losses. The back-and-forth nature of the team’s fortunes kept them in or around third in the Metro until things took a turn for the worst. The Flyers finally lost a third consecutive game on March 28, which would turn out to be just the third in an eight-game losing streak that yielded just two points. Before the streak, the Flyers sat four points clear of the Washington Capitals for the division’s final playoff spot, but after it, Philadelphia had fallen to sixth in the division, behind Washington, the New York Islanders, and Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Penguins.

Hope was not totally lost at the time, however, as the Flyers sat four points behind third place in the Metro and two points behind the final Eastern Conference Wild Card playoff spot. Going into the last game of the season against the Capitals, the Flyers would need some magic fairy dust in order to leapfrog some teams via tiebreaker and make the playoffs. Unfortunately for Tortorella and the Philly faithful, the Detroit Red Wings, also competing for the final Wild Card spot, managed to send its game against the Montreal Canadiens to overtime, sealing the Flyers’ fate just before the Capitals scored an empty-net goal.

While the season ended with feelings most Flyers fans may not have been expecting going into the season, a competitive campaign that nearly included a playoff appearance is reason enough to have optimism for the 2024-25 season.