Travis Sanheim sounds off on the John Tortorella fiasco.

The John Tortorella era in Philadelphia is officially over but we will likely be hearing about and dealing with the fallout of his controversial exit this week for a while to come.

Tortorella has, rightfully, been the subject of much criticism in recent days for his handling of young players, friction behind the scenes in the Philadelphia Flyers organization, and of course the very controversial comments that many believe eventually forced the Flyers to fire him. While much of the stories surrounding the controversial Flyers head coach have had an unmistakable air of negativity to them, it would be unfair to suggest that Tortorella's tenure in Philadelphia was only negative.

In fact one of Tortorella's now former players, Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim, went out of his way to express quite the opposite in the wake of Tortorella's firing this week, using his platform to express how grateful he was to have had the chance to learn under Tortorella in recent years.

"Yeah, like I said, tough day today," said Sanheim in the wake of Tortorella being fired. "Torts has done a lot for a lot of guys in his locker room. Me especially. Had some hard times with him, but made me a better player. Really thankful for the time that I had with him."

Now you could perhaps brush this off as Sanheim merely trying to say the right thing after his head coach was fired, but it definitely did not come off that way. Sanheim continued to praise Tortorella and credited Tortorella's leadership behind the bench as a big part of the reason he got the chance to represent his home nation at the Four Nations Face-Off.

"Probably wouldn't be where I was this year, 4 Nations, without his coaching and pushing me to be a better player and a harder player to play against," admitted Sanheim. "So I'll always be thankful for that. In saying that, it's a business and we have to move forward. Happy with the result tonight. Hopefully we can continue to keep building this."

While Tortorella may have grown frustrated with the direction of the team, it would be unfair to suggest that he did not have a positive impact during his tenure with the Flyers. After hearing comments like this from some of Philadelphia's most important players I do wonder if other teams around the National Hockey League might consider a Tortorella coaching hire sooner rather than later.