Philadelphia Flyers head coach John Tortorella may have mellowed (slightly) in certain ways but he's still unafraid to present his unvarnished take -- for good or for bad, as he doesn't care how others may react -- on various subjects.

A couple weeks ago, Tortorella said that young athletes today (not just in hockey but certainly including hockey) need to be "spoon-fed very simple information" and can't absorb anything that takes more than few seconds to explain because "they have the attention span of an amoeba". About a week later, he doubled down by saying the NHL is "a young, dumb" league.

On Friday, Tortorella was asked about the Flyers' 5-2-0 record and whether he is concerned by how deep in the red the team is in terms of shot differentials, scoring chance discrepancies, and underlying puck possession analytics. Goaltender Carter Hart is off to an almost superhuman start but whether he -- or any goalie -- could sustain that level is a big question.

"I think most analytics are trash," Tortorella said. "I believe in the eye test and the stomach he said."

The coach went on to say that he doesn't have a roster that's built to be a good analytics teams but the underlying numbers aren't his end goal, anyway. He cares about results, resiliency and being willing to pay the price to win. His concerns lie in technical areas related to body and stick positing in the defensive zone, which he said is correctable over time (although not right off the bat) and eventually leads to more puck possession. But the specific numbers, he said, mean nothing to him.

Tortorella said he uses certain numbers -- he's a fan of blocked shots, for one -- and looks at a plus-minus of sorts in goals created or scored vs. opposing scoring chances in which a player either errs by commission or omission. Beyond that, he leaves the numbers to others and manages by what he sees and what his gut feeling tells him.

It's a very old-school way of coaching and Tortorella is unapologetic about it. Naturally, his statement has re-ignited something that was a hot debate a few years ago but which had died down a bit as more and more NHL teams expanded their analytics departments and numbers-citing grew as a bigger and bigger part of the coverage of the sport.

Let's hear your take on the message board.

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