John Tortorella was upset.
And he was going to make sure that the object of his ire heard him.
Give or take a half hour after Tortorella’s Flyers defeated the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 in a shootout Wednesday night at Wells Fargo Center on the night of Jan. 10, the coach was in the middle of his postgame press conference when he asked the following question:
“Is the guy here that caused Kevin Hayes a problem?”
“The guy” Tortorella asked about was veteran Philadelphia hockey writer Anthony SanFilippo, who has covered the Flyers for the Delaware County Daily Times and the team’s website over the course of his career, and now writes for the Crossing Broad blog.
What did he say or do to earn Tortorella’s wrath?
Glad you asked.
During the Flyers’ 4-1 home loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins two nights earlier, general manager Danny Briere held an impromptu press conference to announce the organization had traded highly touted prospect Cutter Gauthier to the Anaheim Ducks for Jamie Drysdale and a 2025 second-round draft pick.
The reason for the trade was that, according to Briere, Gauthier had cut off lines of communication with the organization dating back to last May, and as such, it had become clear that the Boston College standout “didn’t want to be a Flyer (and) didn’t want to be in Philadelphia.”
Shortly thereafter, SanFilippo reported for the blog that Gauthier and former Flyer Kevin Hayes were friends due to their Boston College connection, and suggested that the St. Louis Blues center “either had direct impact on Gauthier’s decision to not want to play for the Flyers or that it was very possible that he did,” citing information gleaned from “multiple sources.”
SanFilippo would say, in a discussion that night on the Snow The Goalie devoted to the trade, that after speaking with someone within the organization, “Kevin Hayes’ fingerprints are all over this.”
You can predict what happened next.
Hayes became the target for angry missives from aggrieved and outraged fans on social media. The next day, Tuesday, he spoke to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Matthew DeFranks about the allegation and the response he received from Flyers fans.
“It’s completely false,” Hayes told DeFranks. “One hundred percent false. I don’t know where he got that information from. I took that kid golfing once. The (Boston College) coach…asked me to take him golfing just to chat with him. He played nine holes, and he went home. I sent him a text after he won World Juniors saying, ‘Congrats.’ I told him if he ever had any issues or problems, when I was with Philly, I felt like I was doing Philly a good service by helping out their fifth overall pick. Never once said a negative thing about (Tortorella). Never once said a negative thing about the organization. I reached out to (Briere) last night, told him exactly what I’m telling you.
“Yeah, I think it’s complete s–t, honestly. I think those two guys acted like complete pieces of s–t, to be honest. Making s–t up. Now I’m going to bed and waking up with death threats and people (who) want my family dead and people that are happy that my brother’s dead. I think it’s completely insane that this guy can say something like that.
“I honestly heard it and started laughing. Who the f–k am I to have influence on if a kid plays for an NHL team or not? I don’t have that influence. I think whatever (information) that guy got, he should fact check it. You can ask Cutter about it. You can ask that idiot reporter if he wants to ask me questions about it. I’ll answer any questions he has.
“I enjoyed all four years in Philly. It’s a class act organization. I had an absolute blast there. I wish the results were better at the end but they weren’t. All of a sudden I get traded, which I’m not mad at them about at all. It’s their opinion. We’re in a professional business where they make decisions on who they want on their team. I wasn’t one of them. I totally respect everything they’ve built there. I still have really close friends there. I think it’s insane how an 18-year-old kid not going to a team is somehow my fault.”
And now, more than 24 hours later, Tortorella was going to have his say.
After SanFilippo responded in the affirmative that he was at Tortorella’s postgame press conference, the fiery coach offered his critique of his reporting.
“Are you kidding me,” Tortorella said. “You think Kevin Hayes is going to do something like that? It’s bulls–t. It pisses me off that you guys (in the media) throw that s–t around and it affects someone’s life. Kevin and I had a problem. We couldn’t come to an agreement on how to play (but) that’s a good man. That’s a good man and what you said is going to stay with him. That’s what you guys (in the media) don’t understand. And you’re going to sit there and say you have the right sources.
“I call bulls–t.”
Spend any amount of time around Tortorella’s current and former players who swear by him, a recurring theme is their admiration of his devotion to them as human beings. What he said last Wednesday night is another example, even though it was not exactly a state secret that Tortorella and Hayes were on different pages during the Flyers’ 2022-23 season.
More to the point, it is difficult to argue that he is wrong.
As mentioned previously, SanFilippo is an experienced, sourced reporter. It is a certainty that he spoke to trusted organizational sources, who shared their unfiltered thoughts with him. And reporters are notoriously competitive. Every reporter worth his or her salt wants to break news, wants an exclusive story, wants a juicy story.
And, to be honest, this was juicy since it was about a 19-year-old, the fifth overall pick in the 2022 draft, essentially forcing a trade from one of the NHL’s elemental franchises.
But there is a value in slowing down and making sure the story is right. As mentioned previously, SanFilippo wrote his sources told him Hayes “either had direct impact on Gauthier’s decision to not want to play for the Flyers or that it was very possible that he did.”
Very possible.
Those two small words are significant. Because it weakens both the
strength of the sentence and the allegation.
Moreover, if a writer-slash-reporter is going to run with a story that is as explosive as the one SanFilippo wrote, it is imperative to get comment from Hayes and Gauthier, or their representation.
To be fair, perhaps he did try to reach out to Hayes and Gauthier. But not to even have something as anodyne as “neither Hayes nor Gauthier responded to messages,” in the story was incautious.
And led to very fair criticism.
