Why is Tortorella not popular amongst fans?

[Nut Upstrom]

Great coach. Unfortunately most of today’s players are a bunch of spoiled brats who can’t handle being pushed to achieve greatness.

While I agree, many of the players are spoiled brats, we're talking about a sixty-ish year old man who throws tantrums like a six year old. He's a good coach and entertaining to watch, but he has a large number of haters because he is a petulant man-boy with self control issues. Of course, this is also what makes him entertaining and I prefer him in the league just for the laughs.

 

[Curufinwe]

He's the biggest liar I've ever seen as a head coach, and the Philly media doesn't have a single person with the stones to call him out on it. He benched Sanheim in Calgary solely to embarrass him in front of his friends and family, and then denied that he knew Sanheim was from Calgary.

Sanheim played in all 81 other games last season.

 

[Steve Kournianos]

Because he has a “shtick”.

when things are going well, he’s a tough, badass coach who gets respect from his players and the most out of the roster he is given.

When things go poorly, he looks like a know nothing, arrogant douche bag.

I know the tough guys in this thread (and everywhere else) really want to believe they are more masculine by simply saying “social media can’t deal with his no nonsense attitude” while they can. But the reason is far less self serving.

He has a big personality. When it’s working, it’s great. When it’s not, he sucks.

Everyone in New England loved Bill Belichick’s shtick with the media until he started losing and now he just looks like an idiot.

Two championship-winning coaches OMG what idiots

 

[Oddbob]

This thread is like asking someone, why don't you like getting slapped in the face?

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

Not popular? I love him. He's pure entertainment. Me and my buddies call him The Great Tortellini (I likely stole this from someone many years ago).

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

Two championship-winning coaches OMG what idiots

Not saying it’s justified.

Just that the vast majority of people couldn’t give two shits about Torts yelling or being otherwise authoritarian. It’s just whether that outward personality is giving results or not.

 

[Steve Kournianos]

It always amazes me how type-A disciplinarian coaches with winning track records get mislabled as toxic or archaic, and fans still think strict disciplinarians dont achieve results without being abusive and corrupt.

First of all, a coach like Torts is hired for exactly that — discipline and a winning track record. He did it with the NYR, Columbus, and now Philly. The turnaround is stark, albeit not sustainable like any coach. So you move on and try again.

When any coach of a losing team is fired, he leaves that team with obvious shortcomings that need to be addressed. The owner of a losing team meets with the GM after the season and the players’ exit interviews provide him with a idea of what the problems are. If a team can’t score, bring in an offensive guru; Can’t defend? Bring in a defense-first approach. Not that hard to comprehend.

In the Flyers’ case, they were the definition of soft, tiny-hearted, and underachieving under Vigneault. After 2019-20, they were too easy to play against and were an automatic loss after giving up the first goal.

Like the OP stated, Torts is the biggest reason behind the improvement. They degraded the roster and still play hard every night. It probably won’t last, but Torts brought in the right culture for what the Flyers were trying to do — to stop playing like the wussies they were. The young players will be better because of it.

 

[Steve Kournianos]

Not saying it’s justified.

Just that the vast majority of people couldn’t give two shits about Torts yelling or being otherwise authoritarian. It’s just whether that outward personality is giving results or not.

A lot of player-friendly coaches are clueless and don’t last, or the veterans walk all over them. A common denominator for nearly all winning coaches is they command respect regardless of how overt their style is. Coach K, Dean Smith, Dusty Baker, Bochy, Cooper all have their angry moments and practiced occasional blame displacement. Not every player liked playing for them.

In Torts’ case with Philly, they literally needed a harder hand, except he’s not passive-aggressive like Vigneault and he’s nowhere near as abrasive as he was in New York or Vancouver. He still has a temper but it’s clearly the exception nowadays.

Believe or not, many players still like and perform better for tough, demanding coaches.

 

[Boss Man Hughes]

A lot of player-friendly coaches are clueless and don’t last, or the veterans walk all over them. A common denominator for nearly all winning coaches is they command respect regardless of how overt their style is. Coach K, Dean Smith, Dusty Baker, Bochy, Cooper all have their angry moments and practiced occasional blame displacement. Not every player liked playing for them.

In Torts’ case with Philly, they literally needed a harder hand, except he’s not passive-aggressive like Vigneault and he’s nowhere near as abrasive as he was in New York or Vancouver. He still has a temper but it’s clearly the exception nowadays.

Believe or not, many players still like and perform better for tough, demanding coaches.

The problem is he likes worthless garbage players rather than talented ones.

 

[AndreRoy]

CBJ fan and Tortorella fan. Short answer is that people are idiots. God how I miss the Torts coached era CBJ team and how opposing teams/fans looked at them, and most importantly, HOW THEY PLAYED ON THE ICE.

As a Lightning fan I will never forget the thorough thrashing your team gave us in the playoffs, not only for the ass-kicking itself but for how it finally taught Cooper how his team needed to play to be successful in the postseason. Torts didn’t have the talent to win championships with that CBJ team, but adopting his hard-nosed, defense-first style allowed the Bolts to win them after years of SCF/ECF heartbreak.

 

[BCNate]

His time with the Canucks was a disaster, but I'm still a huge fan of his.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Two championship-winning coaches OMG what idiots

imagine comparing Torts to Belichick, lol

 

[sennysensen]

I've come around, I think Torts is a great coach. He does have a shelf life, but can turn around a team quickly.

 

[Steve Kournianos]

imagine comparing Torts to Belichick, lol

Both will be in their respective HOF’s

 

[ICanMotteBelieveIt]

The dude can do his job. Flyers' roster is probably bottom 6 in the whole league, but the team's results are much better than this.

He's on par for the course then, as expected.

He will turn meh teams into very good/solid teams for like 2 years before the lockerroom tunes him out.

I personally like him as a person and I think he's hilarious. Especially when he gets into it with that bum Larry Brooks.

 

[AndreRoy]

When's the last time Torts made a conference final again?

When’s the last time he’s had a team that was reasonably capable of doing so? He gets hired to turn around crap teams, which he does successfully. His style is proven to work in the postseason; he just hasn’t had the talent on any of his recent teams to go deep in it.

 

[ICanMotteBelieveIt]

Barely relevant, cringe weirdo that most organizations hope he can go a season without doing or saying something embarrassing. Why should Tortorella be popular among fans?

We're talking about Torts, not Mike Babcock.

 

[Kegs]

He is under rated. He always protects his players and the media hates him. They paint him as some kind of horrible person. To me he looks like a players coach. He knows how to win.

 

[ICanMotteBelieveIt]

I love Torts! Strict no nonsense coach who led us to our franchise to our first ever cup win. While he's hard on his players, he also stands up for them.

agreed.

 

[WarriorofTime]

His style is proven to work in the postseason;

One playoff series win in a decade. There's not much proof his style works in the postseason in the modern, much more faster, NHL.

Don't really see the hype. The Flyers didn't try and tank and were 7th worst in the NHL last season. Bit of gun jumping to celebrate 7 points in 6 GP thus far, they'll likely be well out of the Playoffs again. They definitely need to make sure they have a different coach before Michkov arrives or Torts will likely exile him back to Russia after the first preseason game.

 

[ClydeLee]

When’s the last time he’s had a team that was reasonably capable of doing so? He gets hired to turn around crap teams, which he does successfully. His style is proven to work in the postseason; he just hasn’t had the talent on any of his recent teams to go deep in it.

Then what value is he, are these teams then having success after him because he turned them around? The Philly fan here seems happy with him, but is that a better 5 year plan for the team? Having Torts grind more wins when they're still needing to add big pieces to their prospect pool.

For a team like CBJ it made sense to want a playoff series win to grow fans... but pretty much all star talent but Werenski is gone from that team, what remains? And several of the players people presumed left partly because Torts.

If he's good for them, they should still have positive situations or set ups after he leaves shouldn't they?

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

Because he’s a loudmouth blowhard jackass and his schtick gets old fast??

A Flyer fan agreeing with a Pens fan. What’s the world coming to

 

[MXD]

The dude can do his job. Flyers' roster is probably bottom 6 in the whole league, but the team's results are much better than this.

They were bottom-6 (in the margin of error) last season and this current season is, like, 3 weeks old.

 

[3074326]

I hated Torts until he coached in Columbus (where I live). Now I love the guy. Such a good dude off the ice.

He doesn't seem to be the monumental prick that he used to be, either. That certainly helps.

 

[MXD]

It always amazes me how type-A disciplinarian coaches with winning track records get mislabled as toxic or archaic, and fans still think strict disciplinarians dont achieve results without being abusive and corrupt.

First of all, a coach like Torts is hired for exactly that — discipline and a winning track record. He did it with the NYR, Columbus, and now Philly. The turnaround is stark, albeit not sustainable like any coach. So you move on and try again.

Tortorella doesn't have a winning record, or a winning track record, in Philly.

Tortorella is pretty good at what he is, and has nothing to do with the likes of Babcock or, I dunno, Michel Therrien. He generally seems like a genuine good guy.

But, in terms of results in Philly, it's not much different than, say, Martin St-Louis, considering he had a generally (slightly) better roster to work with.