Tortorella ejection overshadows dismal 7-0 Flyers loss to Lightning

Well, the Philadelphia Flyers can now say that they have been party to a signature John Tortorella explosion.

Tortorella, of course, is well known for his tendency to lose his temper on occasion. But thus far as head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, his memorable incidents were mostly limited to a few blowups at local reporters and some comically short press conferences.

Now, there’s a vintage Tortorella explosion on his Philadelphia track record, in the form of his first period ejection after blowing up on the officials in the wake of Brayden Point’s power play goal just 10:49 into the game.

But perhaps the ejection was for the best, since Tortorella didn’t have to sit on the bench and watch the entirety of the team’s first real clunker in over a month, as they stumbled to a 7-0 defeat at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

“I will guarantee you that nobody in that locker room is feeling good about anything we did tonight,” assistant coach Brad Shaw said after the game, as Tortorella declined to speak.

Tortorella’s frustration with the officials didn’t come out of nowhere. It likely began with Ronnie Attard getting whistled for a ticky-tack penalty during a loose puck scramble just four minutes into the game, leading to a Tampa power play goal and a 2-0 advantage for the home team.

Then, five minutes later, Attard was called for another questionable penalty, nabbed for a trip on Michael Eyssimont that easily could have been seen as incidental contact, with Eyssimont tripping over Attard’s skate while the two chased down the puck on a potential icing play.

“It just looked like two guys skating, they’re hustling for a puck and their skates hit together, and one guy fell down and one didn’t,” Shaw contended.

And finally, during the ensuing Lightning power play, Garnet Hathaway (one of Tortorella’s best penalty killing forwards) was given a 10-minute misconduct for pushing Anthony Cirelli after a whistle.

“No comment on that,” Hathaway said when asked for his thoughts on the call.

So when Point scored to make it a 4-0 game on that very same power play, Tortorella’s blood was surely boiling. And he let the officials know it. Whether it was the Attard penalties, the Hathaway misconduct, or a combination of everything (including the lopsided score), Tortorella decided to express his dissatisfaction to the officials in animated terms.

What exactly did he say?

“Well, I think he just trying to make a point that we felt like we might not be getting our fair shake,” Shaw said. “But it’s an emotional game at times, and we all get elevated blood pressure. It’s just part of the game.”

“I don’t know if he really deserved to get kicked out after what he said, he didn’t say much,” Sean Couturier added.

Whatever he said, it was enough for referee Wes McCauley to decide that he no longer wanted Tortorella involved in the game, and he tossed him. Except Tortorella wouldn’t leave.

Tortorella even tried to send a new line out, ignoring the directive from McCauley.

“It was, I guess, a bit of a protest on his part to hammer home the point that he wasn’t very ecstatic about the call,” Shaw said.

But the officials stood their ground, refusing to drop the puck until Tortorella exited. So he did, leaving a stream of curses and swears in his wake.

He also left a game that never got any better for the Flyers. And if there was one positive for the team that came out of Tortorella’s ejection, it was the fact that such a memorable incident is destined to overshadow what was a pretty miserable day on the whole for the Flyers.

It started out poorly from the jump. Defenseman Egor Zamula woke up feeling ill, and the Flyers had chosen the day before to send Adam Ginning — their seventh defenseman in the wake of the Erik Johnson trade — down to the AHL on deadline day so he could retain eligibility for the AHL postseason and to rejoin the Phantoms. Their wager was that the Flyers wouldn’t need an extra defenseman for the final game of a brief trip — but then Zamula got sick.

The Flyers tried to get Ginning back for the game on an emergency recall. But likely due to poor weather battering the northeast on Saturday afternoon, Ginning’s flight back to Florida was delayed, and then delayed again, until it was logistically impossible to get Ginning to Tampa for puck drop. The Flyers had no choice but to start just five defensemen, with one in Johnson making his debut with the club. A less than ideal situation for everyone involved, to be sure.

That said, the Flyers could have dressed 10 defensemen on Saturday and it wouldn’t have mattered, given how poorly Sam Ersson played.

Ersson has been a revelation this season, first earning his way into a tandem situation with Carter Hart, and then stepping into the No. 1 job in the wake of Hart’s sexual assault charge. Ersson has made a habit out of rising to every challenge he’s faced this season. On this night, however, Ersson very much looked like the rookie that he still is.

Tampa Bay’s first goal was the result of a screen, and not an especially egregious tally to permit. Their second and third goals were a different story. On Nicolas Paul’s power play goal, Ersson had a clear opportunity to cover the loose puck in front of him, and just missed it. Then, about three minutes later, he missed the puck again, whiffing on a not-especially-threatening Conor Sheary shot. Once he let in a fourth goal, his night was over — but by then, so was the game.

“We’re usually a pretty decisive team. We’re usually setting the tone and playing a specific game. I thought we let them get to their game really quickly,” Shaw explained.

The Flyers were probably due for a stinker. Their last ugly loss was way back in late January, at the hands of the Boston Bruins in the final game before the all-star break, and they haven’t had all that many of them over the course of the season. Saturday, however, certainly qualified, as everything broke against the Flyers.

Their usually-reliable netminder had a rare off game. The roster was hamstrung due to unforeseen illness and flight delays. The officials were trigger-happy on calls. And now, if Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman is to be believed, their head coach could be facing not-insignificant discipline for his outburst and for initially refusing to leave the bench after being ejected.

“There’s not much to say, honestly, tonight. It was just a bad game for us,” Couturier said. “We’ve got to forget about it and just move on.”

That video of John Tortorella obstinately refusing to leave his team’s bench won’t be easy to forget, however.