3 reasons why John Tortorella failed in Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Flyers fired head coach John Tortorella on Thursday. The coach had one more year on his deal with the Flyers.

Tortorella was the Flyers' coach for three seasons, going 97-105-33 and never led Philadelphia to the playoffs. With just nine games left in the season, the Flyers fired the coach.

“Today I made the very difficult decision to move on from John as our head coach," Flyers general manager Daniel Briere said, via NHL.com. "John played a vital role in our rebuild. ... As we move into the next chapter of this rebuild, I felt this was the best for our team to move forward. I'd like to thank John for his tireless work and commitment to the Flyers."

Here are three reasons why Tortorella failed as the Flyers coach.

3 reasons why John Tortorella failed in Philadelphia

#1. Talent

The first reason has nothing to do with John Tortorella but more to do with the Philadelphia Flyers. In all three years Tortorella was the Flyers coach, he never had a team that was expected to be in the playoffs.

The Flyers were going through a rebuild and never had a good roster ready to compete with the top teams in the NHL. So, in the big picture, Tortorella was never given the tools to succeed in Philadelphia.

#2. His coaching style

John Tortorella is known as a hard coach who demands the most out of his players. However, oftentimes, it can rub the players the wrong way and make them not want to play for him.

Another knock on his coaching style is the fact that he often scratches the team's most skilled players, as he doesn't like their flashy style. Matvei Michkov was scratched multiple times, despite being arguably the best offensive player in Philadelphia, due to his poor defensive play and flashy style.

#3. Didn't prepare the team

The final reason is Philadelphia's preparation for games.

Tortorella said he didn't do a good job preparing the Flyers for games, as he said it was hard to coach when Philadelphia was well outside of a playoff spot.

After the 7-2 loss against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday, Tortorella said:

"It's my job to prepare this team in this type of situation. Haven't done a good enough job the past couple games. ... This falls on me. I'm not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season, where we're at right now. But I have to do a better job, so this falls on me, getting the team prepared to play the proper way until we get to the end."

That quote likely ended up playing a big role in the Flyers firing him.