Sources: Flyers interview former Stanley Cup winner John Tortorella for vacant head coach position

When Flyers winger Cam Atkinson conducted his exit interview on April 30, he praised his former Columbus Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella, who instilled within Atkinson good practice habits — “You practice how you play,” Atkinson said.

What if the Flyers brought in that same man to fill their head coaching vacancy?

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The Flyers have interviewed Tortorella for the position, a source confirmed to the Inquirer on Tuesday. Kevin Weekes of ESPN was the first to report that Tortorella interviewed for the opening.

Tortorella, 63, has 20 years of NHL head coaching experience and won the Stanley Cup in 2004 as head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning. He assumed that role during the 2000-01 season in place of Steve Ludzik, tasked with turning around a team that had lost at least 50 games in four straight seasons. In all, Tortorella has amassed a record of 673 wins, 541 losses, 37 ties, and 132 overtime losses for a .548 points percentage.

In a span of six and a half years, Tortorella became the most successful coach in Lightning history, as the team won its first playoff series in 2003 against the Washington Capitals. With a roster boasting Brad Richards, Vincent Lecavalier, and Martin St. Louis, the Lightning hoisted the Cup in 2004.

In total, the Lightning reached the playoffs four times in Tortorella’s six full seasons at the helm. He won the Jack Adams award following the 2003-04 season as the NHL’s coach of the year.

After the 2007-08 season when the Lightning failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 2001-02, Tortorella was fired. His next chance came when he was named head coach of the New York Rangers on Feb. 23, 2009.

Tortorella found regular-season success with the Rangers, finishing first in the Atlantic Division in 2011-12 and clinching four postseason berths in his five-season tenure. A Boston native, Tortorella became the first U.S.-born coach to reach 300 NHL wins in 2010 and 400 in 2013.

During his time in New York, Tortorella became notorious for his confrontational style with the media, often trading verbal jabs in scrums. He also wasn’t afraid to call out his own players, instilling a culture of toughness within his locker rooms.

Michael Del Zotto, who played for the Rangers from 2009-14, told local media in Columbus in 2021 that he grew to respect Tortorella because of his straightforward approach with his players.

“The thing with Torts, you know where you stand with him,” Del Zotto said at the time. “He’s brutally honest. If you can take it, if you have thick skin, there’s no other coach you’d rather play for. When you play for coaches where you don’t know where you stand, it’s tough to have a conversation with [them]. You’re not sure if they’re telling the truth or not with you. With him, you know where you stand every day, and that’s very hard to find. He wears his heart on his sleeve, too. He would do anything for his players.”

But his Rangers teams never made it past the conference finals, going 19-25 in the playoffs. After the Rangers fired Tortorella on May 29, 2013, he was hired by the Vancouver Canucks a month later.

Tortorella’s time in Vancouver was marked by controversy, from his 15-day suspension for attempting to confront Calgary Flames coach Bob Hartley in their dressing room on Jan. 18, 2014, to starting goalie Eddie Läck over Roberto Luongo in the Heritage Classic on March 2, 2014.

After one season (36-35-11), Tortorella was fired as part of a management overhaul.

On Oct. 21, 2015, Tortorella was named head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Since the organization’s inception in 2000, the Blue Jackets had only reached the postseason twice before Tortorella’s arrival.

From 2017-20, Tortorella turned the Blue Jackets around as they reached the playoffs in four consecutive seasons. He won the Jack Adams again in 2016-17 after the Blue Jackets finished third in the Metropolitan Division (50-24-8), an improvement over their last-place finish in 2015-16 (34-40-8).

That season, Tortorella helped the Blue Jackets tighten up defensively, as they ranked second in the league in fewest goals against per game (2.35). They finished second-to-last (3.02) the year before.

The Blue Jackets won their first playoff series in the organization’s history in 2019, eliminating his former team, the Lightning, in one of the NHL’s biggest upsets. The Lightning had posted a (62-16-4) record under Jon Cooper that season, amassing 128 points, the fourth-most in NHL history.

Before Game 1 of that series, Tortorella delivered a passionate, motivational speech which went viral on Twitter.

“It just naturally makes you play with that edge and emotion, and he’s a guy who brings that out of us,” then-Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno told The Tampa Bay Times at the time. “He’s an unbelievable motivator. He’s a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve, and in a game like that, you knew he was going to come with that passion because that’s what he wants for us.”

However, Tortorella occasionally butted heads with star players, including Blue Jackets winger Patrik Laine. Following the 2020-21 season, when Tortorella’s contract expired and he and the club mutually parted ways, Laine criticized his former coach to Aamulehti, a Finnish daily newspaper.

“I guess everyone must have rules, but of course, you always hope that you will be able to use your strengths,” Laine told Aamulehti in July. “Tortorella did not give freedom to anyone. Forwards want to create offensively. You have to ‘cheat’ a bit if you want to become a goal king. It is not possible if the coaches think differently. But I do as they tell me.”

Even after leaving the NHL’s coaching ranks, Tortorella’s old-school views persisted. As an analyst for ESPN, Tortorella caused a major stir after criticizing Anaheim Ducks forward Trevor Zegras for his “Michigan goal” earlier this season, stating he wasn’t sure if it was “good for the game.”

Despite Tortorella’s polarizing public persona, his former players have praised him for his tough-love style.

» READ MORE: Why the Flyers' 47-year Stanley Cup drought shows no signs of ending soon

Pierre-Luc Dubois was benched with the Blue Jackets before he was granted a trade to the Winnipeg Jets last year. Still, he maintained a sense of a respect for Tortorella.

“He’s a hard coach, I can take it,” Dubois said in an interview with Hockey Night in Canada last year. “Nothing’s personal. I grew up with a dad who’s a coach, and he told me if a coach challenges you, it’s never personal; he just wants what’s best for you. And that’s how I see Torts, and I have nothing but respect for him.”

With one interview down and likely more to come, the Flyers are well on their way to identifying their future bench boss for the upcoming season.