John Tortorella fired by Flyers with just nine games left in season

The Flyers couldn’t wait to end the John Tortorella era.

Philadelphia fired its head coach on Thursday morning, despite there only being nine games left in the regular season.

The Flyers are currently 28-36-9 and in last place in the Metro Division.

Tortorella vented his frustration after the team’s latest loss on Tuesday night — a 7-2 shellacking by the Maple Leafs that was the Flyers’ sixth straight defeat.

“When you’re in this type of situation and you’re losing all the time, and there’s nothing at the end of the tunnel for you, there’s certainly going to be some frustration. But this falls on me,” Tortorella, 66, 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 had a more memorable run as coach of the Rangers for four-plus seasons, where he led them to the playoffs in his final years, including a 2012 Eastern Conference Finals loss to the Devils.

The fiery Tortorella has also coached the Lightning, who he led to the Stanley Cup in 2004, as well as the Canucks and Blue Jackets.

“Today I made the very difficult decision to move on from John as our head coach,” Flyers GM 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. John’s passion on the bench was only equaled by his charitable work in our community. As we move into the next chapter of this rebuild, I felt this was the best for our team to move forward. I’d like to thank John for his tireless work and commitment to the Flyers.”

This was Tortorella’s third season with the rebuilding Flyers and leaves with a record of 97-107-32.

Assistant Brad Shaw is taking over as the team’s interim coach.