Flyers Coach John Tortorella Has Standoff With Official After Getting Ejected

You don't see NHL coaches getting ejected all that often, and it's even less frequent that you see them nail their feet to the bench the way Philadelphia Flyers bench boss John Tortorella did and refuse to go to the locker room.

Oddly enough, Saturday night's Flyers-Lightning game in Tampa included a celebration of the 2004 Lightning team that won the Stanley Cup nearly 20 years ago. That team was coached by — of course — John Tortorella.

However, that was where the fun stopped, because as soon as the puck dropped it was a nightmare for the Flyers.

The Lightning dropped four goals on the Flyers in the first 10 minutes of the game thanks to a slew of penalties against the Flyers most of them deserved. 

This was getting Torts fired up, and after the fourth goal, the Flyers pulled starter Sam Ersson in favor of backup Felix Sandstrom.

Torts laid into referee Wes McCauley, and the veteran official wasn't having it. He gave the Flyers a bench minor and handed their coach a game misconduct.

Well, Tortorella wasn't having it, and flat-out refused to go to the room.

Have fun reading his lips in this clip!

Notice they cut to a bunch of dudes in a luxury box cracking up? Those were all guys who played for Torts in 2004.

They have seen this movie before.

If you're a Flyer, you have to be happy to see your coach invested in the team. However, this kind of complete, nuclear meltdown isn't something the Flyers can afford to do down the stretch if they want to cling to the third seed in the Metropolitan division.

Still, it was nice to see a little excitement from the Flyers in what was an otherwise all-Lightning first period.