Flyers’ Brad Shaw would ‘really like to try’ being their permanent coach. Could he be the right fit?

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PHILADELPHIA — In his two decades as an assistant coach in the NHL, Brad Shaw has had eight different bosses. Naturally, he’s picked up a thing or two from some them along the way.

For four years, for example, Shaw was an associate coach for recent Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Ken Hitchcock in St. Louis, culminating in the Blues reaching the 2016 Western Conference final. The way Hitchcock ran practices resonated with Shaw, and he’s now implementing that with the Philadelphia Flyers as their interim head coach.

That is, keep the competitive juices flowing, particularly late, when players might be a bit physically and mentally fatigued.

“He was big on starting with a great drill and ending with something competitive,” Shaw said of Hitchcock. “All you have to do is keep score and things get competitive. With these clowns out here, that’s all you have to do, just tell them you’re keeping score. All of a sudden, it almost gets dangerous how much effort and focus goes in.”

Travis Sanheim is an advocate for Shaw’s approach.

“That’s kind of the style that he likes,” Sanheim said. “It’s pretty easy for us when it’s a competition to start chirping each other and kind of get into it. It makes it a lot of fun, and makes practice go by a lot quicker.”

The Flyers took their 2024-25 team photo at Wells Fargo Center on Monday morning. Shaw sat in the front row between general manager Daniel Briere and assistant general manager Barry Hanrahan. It’s a spot that, had the photo been snapped just two weeks ago, would have been occupied by John Tortorella, who was fired on March 27. Instead, it’s Shaw’s job for five more games as the Flyers play out the string, officially eliminated from the playoffs with Saturday’s 3-2 loss in Montreal.

At some point, probably later this month, Briere will have to decide whether Shaw, 60, is a candidate for the full-time gig. And Shaw has at least one supporter, in one of those former bosses.

“He never really pushed for it but I sure as heck thought he could be a head coach,” Hitchcock said in a phone interview on Monday morning. “If he wants to be a head coach, he’d be really good at it.”

And Shaw, who had a 40-game stint as the New York Islanders’ interim coach in 2005-06, is interested. He left no ambiguity there in his comments on Monday afternoon. When asked if he had to voice that interest to Briere, Shaw replied: “I don’t know if I have to really tell Danny that I would like the job. I think it’s probably expected.”

He continued: “The one thing that does happen when you get a little taste of head coaching, I’d really like to try it and really have the team from mid-summer. … From Day 1 in camp, you’re implementing what you think should happen. Would love to try that. If that’s not in the cards, then I have really enjoyed my time here.”

There’s little doubt that Shaw has a solid reputation in the dressing room and among the Flyers’ brass. Briere didn’t say much about Shaw specifically in his news conference immediately after firing Tortorella, but that was probably a consequence of the suddenness of that decision more than anything else. He simply hadn’t had time to think deeply on it yet.

For his part, Tortorella often had effusive praise for Shaw, once calling him “the best assistant coach” in the NHL. Shaw and Tortorella spent five seasons in Columbus together before they were hired by the Flyers in the 2022 offseason.

When he was working for both Tortorella and Hitchcock, Shaw ran the defense and the penalty kill. Hitchcock was impressed with Shaw’s ability to work with players one-on-one: something that Tortorella used to praise Shaw for, too, particularly as defensemen such as Sanheim, Cam York and Jamie Drysdale took steps forward in their young careers.

“Done a great job with a lot of us defensemen and the way that we’ve kind of developed,” Sanheim said. “Guys getting better each year.”

Hitchcock was also keen on Shaw’s ability to identify adjustments that needed to be made from game to game, and not just with the defense, but the overall team structure. After games, Shaw would come to Hitchcock with a list of what needed to be worked on the next day, with video clips that reflected what he was talking about.

“He’s got a great feel for what’s going on in the game and adjustments that need to get made,” Hitchcock said. ““I always tried to hire people that I thought were smarter than me. I really felt that Shawzy was really a smart hockey person. He really understood and nuances of the team game and really knew how to push that forward.”

While Tortorella was often quick to give Shaw credit for what he did with some of the Flyers’ individual defensemen, Shaw worked with the forwards, too.

Center Noah Cates, for example, developed from a fifth-round pick in 2017 into a player that is likely to earn a healthy multi-year contract extension this offseason. Cates’ progress hasn’t been linear — he took a step backward last season after he received a handful of down-ballot Selke Trophy votes in 2022-23 — but the 26-year-old now looks like he could be a potential long term solution at third line center now that he’s seemingly figured it out.

According to Cates, Shaw deserves an amount of credit for his becoming a reliable two-way checker who can also create offense.

“Just making sure that I see those (defensive) concepts at five-on-five, (and) believing in my game and how good I can be defensively, and how that can translate to offense,” Cates said of his work with Shaw. “A huge believer in me and my game, and has helped me bring it to the next level as far as the defensive side — and building off of that.”

That success with Cates also reflects what Hitchcock believes is another one of Shaw’s abilities — getting the most out of his players, including those with higher skill levels.

Rookie Matvei Michkov’s development, of course, is going to play an outsized role in whether the Flyers’ rebuild is successful. It’s been notable that Shaw has relied on Michkov lately, including a career-high of 23:04 in ice time in Montreal on Saturday, despite it being one of Michkov’s poorer games in recent weeks. The rope Michkov seems to be getting under Shaw is already longer than it was with Tortorella.

“Any player that has top skill level, (Shaw is) going to get a lot out of them,” Hitchcock said. “He doesn’t overthink the defensive responsibilities. He wants to push forward on what that players’ strengths are. Wouldn’t surprise me if some of the top players start to elevate their games.”

Shaw acknowledged that he wasn’t overly thrilled with the Flyers’ first three games after the change, even though they were all wins. The high-scoring victories over the Canadiens (6-4) and Sabres (7-4) — games in which both teams seemed to move the puck through the neutral zone with ease — were not sustainable. The Flyers since eked out a 2-1 win over Nashville on March 31, and had a 1-0 lead on the Canadiens on Saturday through two periods before flopping in the third, evidence that they’re trying to get back to a style of play that at least makes the undermanned club competitive.

Shaw recognizes that the situation the Flyers are now in, with nothing really to play for other than being a spoiler, is “a tough pill to swallow.” His message to the group has been maintaining the proper habits during a stretch in which it may be tougher to concentrate or find motivation.

“The voice kind of firmed up, (and his) message to the team has been great,” Cates said.

The unexpected opportunity, however long it lasts, seems to have sparked Shaw.

“It’s the best job in coaching, right? It’s the pinnacle,” he said. “I think everybody that coaches probably aspires to it. It’s been a great experience.”

(Photo: Eric Hartline / Imagn Images)

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