The Philadelphia Flyers’ rebuild will continue without John Tortorella. Philadelphia fired its head coach on Thursday morning, replacing him on an interim basis with associate coach Brad Shaw.

The Flyers have plummeted in the standings, losing 11 of their last 12 (1-10-1), including a six-game losing streak (0-5-1). They are 28-36-9 overall this season.

Tortorella, 66, had been the Flyers’ coach since 2022-23, going 97-107-33. He was under contract through the 2025-26 season.

“Today, I made the very difficult decision to move on from John as our head coach,” general manager Daniel Briere said in a statement. “John played a vital role in our rebuild. He set a standard of play and re-established what it means to be a Philadelphia Flyer.”

Tortorella caused a stir Tuesday night after the Flyers’ 7-2 loss in Toronto, when he indicated he might not be fully invested in coaching a team well out of the playoff chase. The Flyers were also blown out by the lowly Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday, 7-4.

“This falls on me,” Tortorella said. “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.”

Tortorella took over under the previous front-office regime, led by then-president and general manager Chuck Fletcher. When Fletcher was fired and the new group took over in the summer of 2023, including Briere, chairman Dan Hilferty and president of hockey operations Keith Jones, they committed to Tortorella right away. Hilferty referred to Tortorella as the organization’s “spiritual leader.”

The Flyers immediately prioritized fixing what they viewed as a broken culture. The team dumped Kevin Hayes, Ivan Provorov and Tony DeAngelo after the 2022-23 season, decisions that seemingly were influenced by Tortorella.

The 2023-24 Flyers overachieved for much of the season, as several players seemed to take strides under Tortorella’s guidance, including Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim. Younger players and former first-round picks such as Cam York, Tyson Foerster and Owen Tippett all took steps in their development, too.

But that club folded late in the season amid some puzzling decisions by Tortorella. He scratched Sean Couturier just a few weeks after naming him captain; was suspended for two games after getting kicked out of a game in Tampa Bay in March for refusing to leave the bench; called the team “soft” after it came from behind late in a vital game against the New York Islanders to earn a point; and admitted that he hadn’t focused enough on coaching the Flyers to play a harder brand of hockey down the stretch.

This season’s Flyers club got off to a difficult start, and was never more than two games over .500. After Briere traded top-nine forwards Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee and Scott Laughton, a team that already lacked skill then tumbled down the standings.

The production of the Flyers’ young players this season has been mixed. York has been a target of Tortorella lately, including on Tuesday, when he was benched for the final 50 minutes. Tippett’s production is down, too, as he’s sitting on just 19 goals after notching 28 last season.

On the other hand, Noah Cates, Bobby Brink and Jamie Drysdale are having the best seasons of their nascent careers, while rookie Matvei Michkov is the Flyers’ second-leading scorer with 51 points (20 goals, 31 assists) in 71 games.

Two issues plagued the Flyers throughout Tortorella’s tenure: the goaltending and the power play. After Carter Hart’s departure midway through the 2023-24 season, the Flyers didn’t get enough saves from Samuel Ersson and his backups, contributing to the collapse. This season, it’s been more of the same: Ersson has struggled with his consistency, while the play of backups Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov has suggested that neither is ready for the NHL. The Flyers have the worst save percentage in the NHL (.871), after finishing last in 2023-24, too (.884).

The power play has finished last in each of the last two seasons under Tortorella and associate coach Rocky Thompson. This season, it’s 30th (13.7 percent), mired in an 0-for-31 drought in March.

Tortorella was previously coach of the New York Rangers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Rangers (again), Vancouver Canucks and Columbus Blue Jackets. He is 770-648-202 in 1,620 career games over 23 seasons, and won the Stanley Cup with the Lightning in 2004.

Briere is scheduled to hold a news conference on Thursday evening, before the Flyers’ game at Wells Fargo Center against the Montreal Canadiens.

(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)