Flyers back their coach, keep it light after Tortorella’s suspension originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
VOORHEES, N.J. — When asked Monday about John Tortorella’s two-game suspension, Cam Atkinson couldn’t refrain from using a popular hockey cliché.
“It’s just the next-man-up mentality sort of thing,” the veteran winger said.
Next coach up?
“Yeah, next coach up,” he said with a smile.
The Flyers, including Tortorella, are not dwelling on the NHL’s decision to ban the head coach for a pair of games. The league hit Tortorella with the suspension and a $50,000 fine Sunday for “unprofessional conduct directed at the officials by refusing to leave the bench area after being assessed a game misconduct.”
The incident occurred Saturday during the first period of the Flyers’ 7-0 loss to the Lightning. Brayden Point had just ballooned Tampa Bay’s lead to 4-0 with a power play goal. Tortorella clearly didn’t agree with some of the penalties called against his club. He was incensed by the officials when they ejected him only 10:49 minutes into the game.
After his team’s practice Monday, Tortorella declined to offer his perspective on the ejection and suspension.
“I’m not commenting on that stuff, no,” he said. “There’s no sense in commenting. We’re moving on and getting ready for San Jose.”
Tortorella won’t coach the Flyers’ home games Tuesday against the Sharks (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP) and Thursday against the Maple Leafs (7:30 p.m. ET/ESPN+, Hulu). He said he’s allowed to be in the Wells Fargo Center, just not behind the bench.
“For us, it might be a little different,” Sean Couturier said. “We’ve just got to be ready, come out with a good effort and make sure we try to get some wins here.”
Couturier didn’t want to expound on the NHL’s decision.
“I guess I’ve got to respect what the league did,” he said. “I wonder if Torts was a repeated offender or something to get two games, but I don’t know.”
When Tortorella was ejected, Couturier and Travis Konecny were shown on the NBC Sports Philadelphia broadcast attempting to get an explanation from veteran referee Wes McCauley.
“They just kept saying he had to go,” Konecny said. “I didn’t really see what warranted that, but obviously they did.”
Atkinson was on the bench in front of Tortorella.
“It’s an emotional game,” he said. “It’s a couple of questionable calls that led to that happening. I was right below him, he was screaming over my head, I personally don’t think what he did was wrong. But everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.
“The most important thing is we have each other’s backs, whether you’re a player or a coach. I don’t think what he did was out of line, so we have to rally around this and come together.”
Last season, over the final nine games, Tortorella didn’t coach behind the bench for five of them. The Flyers were rebuilding and he wanted to evaluate alongside his new interim general manager Danny Briere. He also wanted to give his assistant coaches a chance to run the bench.
In Year 2 with the Flyers, Tortorella has his rebuilding team pushing for the postseason. With 17 games remaining, the Flyers are 33-24-8 and hold a playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division. They’ve been in third place since the end of January, but they’re only two points ahead of the Islanders, who have played two fewer games than the Flyers.
Tortorella’s focus is the 16-40-7 Sharks.
“You can’t look by any teams. It’s so competitive,” the head coach said. “Especially when there are teams that are out, they play looser, they’re free, they’re dangerous teams. For us, the way we’ve gone about it all year long, we need to be ready to play. If we’re going to be competitive against any team in this league, we need to be ready.
“Coming off a split out in Florida — a really good game and a really bad game — we’ve just got to focus on trying to be the best we can be against San Jose.”
And put the 7-0 blowout in the past.
“You don’t have to be a genius to assess how we played against Tampa,” Tortorella said. “We’ll be ready to play. As I’ve gotten to know the group after the first month or so of the season, that has never been a worry of mine going into the locker room each and every day.”
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