Flyers Announce Multiple Changes to Coaching Staff

It was just about a month ago that John Tortorella was relieved of his head coaching duties by the Flyers on March 27. On Wednesday, news on some of his assistant coaches was officially announced by the team.

The Flyers announced that the team would not be retaining assistant coaches Rocky Thompson, Darryl Williams, and Angelo Ricci following this season. 

Thompson joined the coaching staff in 2022-23 after Tortorella was hired. Thompson handled the forwards and power play in his role. Under Thompson’s tenure, the Flyers power play finished the season ranked 32nd in 2022-23 and 2023-24 and only made slight improvement to 30th in 2024-25.

Williams was a carryover from the previous coaching staff of Alain Vigneault, hired as an assistant in 2021-22. Ricci, who was also hired in 2021-22, served as a skills coach for the first two seasons of his time with the Flyers before also adding the assistant coach title in 2023-24.

Two names not mentioned in the Flyers announcement were interim head coach Brad Shaw and goaltending coach Kim Dillabaugh. Dillabaugh has been the Flyers goaltending coach since 2015-16. Shaw, who said he was going to meet with GM Danny Briere early this week to discuss the head coaching vacancy, also joined the Flyers in 2022-23. The Flyers finished 5-3-1 in the final nine games of the 2024-25 season with Shaw in the interim head coaching role.

These decisions are an indicator that, whether Shaw keeps the head coaching job or a new head coach comes in, that they will have input on their coaching staff. Shaw expressed an openness to returning to the Flyers bench in an assistant coach role again if he is not the head coach going forward.

Kevin Durso is Flyers insider for 97.3 ESPN. Follow him on social media @Kevin_Durso.