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Quick Hits: February 14, 2024
1) I have never been one to spend much time discussing the standings before the NHL All-Star break. I tend to focus more about which clubs are hot, cold or inconsistent at a given time. That changes after the break. That's when I start to talk more about day-to-day standings implications, including tiebreakers, games in hand, and clubs' completed vs. upcoming travel schedules.
Last night was a good one for the Flyers (29-19-6), even though the Flyers had a complete off-day from practice and were idle on the game schedule. At least for now, with the Flyers holding third place in the Metro (automatic playoff position), they needn't focus on the wildcard implications of how clubs in the Atlantic fare except in head-to-head games with Philly. Last night's games went in Philly's favor in the Metro standings.
The second-place Carolina Hurricanes (30-17-5) sustained a 4-2 road loss to the Dallas Stars. The Flyers remain one standings point plus a tiebreaker disadvantage (24-21 regulation wins in favor of Carolina) behind the Canes. Carolina still has two games in hand. Carolina's road trip will continue with a game in Tempe on Friday against the Arizona Coyotes and then an immediate turnaround to face the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights in Las Vegas on Saturday.
The Flyers currently are six points ahead of the fourth-place New Jersey Devils (27-21-4), seven points ahead of the fifth-place New York Islanders (22-18-3), 10 points ahead of the sixth-place Washington Capitals (23-21-8), 11 points ahead of the seventh-place Pittsburgh Penguins (23-19-7), and 22 points ahead of the last-place Columbus Blue Jackets (16-26-10).
Note that all of these teams hold games in hand over the Flyers. That's not necessarily an advantage for other clubs. For example, Pittsburgh has played just 49 games so far. Their schedule is about to get very compacted -- just as they're now dealing with several notable injuries -- with cross time-zone travel and numerous 3-in-4 gauntlets still on the docket.
Last night, the Capitals suffered a 6-3 home loss to the Colorado Avalanche. The Islanders lost at home to Seattle via shootout, 2-1 (1-0). The one outcome that was unfavorable to the Flyers. The Devils took away a 4-2 road win over the Nashville Predators. Of course, the Devils will oppose the Flyers on Saturday in the Stadium Series game at MetLife Stadium.
2) The Flyers will hold an 11 a.m. ET practice at the FTC in Voorhees on Wednesday. In the afternoon, the team will depart for Toronto. After an 11:30 a.m. morning skate tomorrow at Scotiabank Arena, the Flyers will take on the Maple Leafs (27-16-8) at 7:00 p.m. ET.
3) Flyers Daily: Technically a member of the Arizona Coyotes this season, Jakub Voracek was in the house for Monday's game against the Flyers at the Wells Fargo Center. Voracek can no longer play hockey professionally due to post-concussion issues. The Coyotes acquired the remainder of Voracek's contract last March from the Columbus Blue Jackets specifically for the salary cap floor benefit (no bonuses owed, higher cap hit than real-dollar salary in the eighth and final year of the extension he signed with the Flyers on July 5, 2015. for the start of the 2016-17 season).
Voracek was shown on the big scoreboard at center ice during a stoppage of play. He received a warm ovation from the Wells Fargo Center crowd and made a "heart" with his hands in replay. Side note: The dynamic between John Tortorella and Voracek would have quite interesting to behold if Jake (who did not get along well on a coach/player basis with Alain Vigneault) had ever played under Tortorella.
On Wednesday's Flyers Daily, Voracek and host Jason Myrtetus discuss Jake's years in Philadelphia and more. In the opening segment, Jason previews Thursday's game in Toronto.
4) There may not be a more self-motivated and self-aware player on the entire Flyers team than Sean Couturier. His level of professionalism, competitive drive, self-honesty and hockey intelligence are beyond reproach. That's why I found it a trifle unnecessary for John Tortorella to get in Couturier's face when Seattle scored their second goal in Saturday's game. Couturier knew he could have done better on both Kraken goals (although the latter one also involved some bad luck as the puck ramped up his stick and past a helpless Cal Petersen).
Even if Tortorella hadn't gotten all over Couturier's case, I still think the player would have bounced right back to win a key faceoff and then deflect home the game-winning goal. Couturier's emotional after-goal response (which Tortorella understood to be -- and had no problem with whatsoever for being--an "F- you" to the head coach) was cathartic. But he'd been frustrated with various things in his own game in recent weeks (Couturier has always been a player who wants to do everything possible to help his team), and he'd probably have had an emotional response anyway to scoring at such a crucial time.
I credit Couturier for helping lift the entire team in that moment. The Flyers had one of their most emphatic close out of the entire season thereafter. Seattle never got even a sniff at a potential comeback. Even as a one-goal lead, the game felt like it was under control barring some odd carom or bad bounce.
I understand that Tortorella getting in Couturier's face was directed as much at the team as the player himself: if Torts would get on one of the league's ultimate pros, no one is safe. However, a coach only has so many bullets to fire over his tenure with a team before players start to tune him out. He expended a bullet on Couturier when he really didn't have to. It's nothing personal between the two men. There's mutual respect. Even so, there's only so many times that going to the whip on a team leader will galvanize the group as a whole before it stops having an effect.
5) On the flip side, Torts and Cam Atkinson have been a very long road together over the years as a coach and player. As such, I knew that Atkinson wouldn't take it personally when he was scratched in the January 4 home game against Columbus.
The player was mired in the longest slump of his NHL career. He'd been given every chance to play through it because he'd built up a lot of "trust credit" with the coach, plus he got off to a strong goal-scoring start early this season. As such, a one-game reset wasn't the end of the world.
Atkinson eventually worked his way out of the long drought. He rattled off a six-game point streak (five goals, five assists, 10 points) from January 13 to 23. Since that time, Atkinson has gone quiet again. He's made a couple of good forechecking plays but scoring chances have decreased again while going without a point in the last six games. He was benched in the entire third period of Thursday's game against Winnipeg. Atkinson did not receive any PK shifts on Saturday against Seattle and only saw 23 seconds of PK time on Monday against Arizona (although he received 5:16 of power play time and 18:51 overall).
Moving forward, Atkinson's usage pattern bears watching. He's not imminent danger of being scratched for a second time this season. His player-coach relationship with Tortorella still has enough mutual trust (and their personal relationship is long since established) that the recent bumps in the road are no more than that. Also, the run of 10 points in six games back in mid-January shows that there's still effective hockey left in the tank.
That said, neither the Flyers nor Atkinson can afford another prolonged spell of goose eggs in the goals and points columns. Much of his value is as a multi-situation scoring threat and a counterattack-minded penalty killer. Although none of the Flyers' league-best 12 shorthanded goals this season have been scored by Atkinson (five by Travis Konecny, three by Ryan Poehling, two by defenseman Sean Walker, and one apiece for Scott Laughton and Garnet Hathaway), Atkinson is still part of the reason why Philly is ranked 2nd leaguewide on the PK this season. He's averaging 1:35 per game on the penalty kill -- 12 seconds more than Hathaway, 15 seconds more than career-long PK regular Couturier -- and is still presumably viewed as an important player in that capacity as the stretch drive approaches.
6) Despite the fact that I work for the Flyers' website and do weekly appearances on the Flyers Daily podcast, I am not afraid to be critical of John Tortorella where I think it's merited. But I also think he deserves credit where it's due.
Tortorella is very good at implementing structure and defining where there's there is -- and is not -- leeway to take risks. It's been made very clear that everyone is expected to block shots (with an understanding that an attempted block will sometimes result in an unfavorable bounce or accidental deflection). The Flyers have gotten much better at taking away the middle of the ice and preventing dangerous plays from developing out of the corners. They're much better at wings-on-D coverages, preventing back-door plays where the goalie is helpless and in centers protecting the house down low.
Breakouts are much, much better under Tortorella and his staff. The Flyers are a genuine threat to generate chances and goals off the rush. The end-zone forecheck and neutral zone forechecks are a full notch better this season than last year. Gaps and puck support are better, too, although there have been periodic hiccups. Forwards still need reminders about backchecking routes on occasion, but the overall structure and 5-on-5 is a lot better.
It goes without saying that Brad Shaw's work with the penalty kill has been tremendous this season. The Flyers have gone from a bottom-end PK before Shaw's arrival to a spotty and streaky PK his first year (in other words, improving but not good enough) and now an elite PK team. Shaw has also done excellent collective work with the blueline at 5-on-5. A group that entered the season as the Flyers' biggest question mark has been good on the whole. The players individually deserve credit, but so does the coach. Tortorella has said repeatedly over the years that Shaw is the gold standard as a blueline/PK coach and it's clear why he's said it. Shaw has been fantastic.
)7 The Flayers power play is a whole other can of worms to open. It's 31st in the NHL at 12.6 percent for the season. There was a promising uptick from the Christmas break to the All-Star break (18.5 percent in that 17-game span). However, while the Flyers have won each of their first four games since the All-Star break, the power play has gone 1-for-16.
At least in Monday's game against Arizona, despite going 0-for-8 (one power play lasted just two seconds), the Flyers generated nine scoring chances overall and three high-danger chances. Philly had a lot of attack zone time, too. So at least the power play wasn't a momentum killer for the Flyers in that game. Even so, the bottom line was that Flyers had to all of their scoring in other ways to overcome deficits of 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2.
There are many things wrong with the current Flyers power play. Their flank shooting hasn't been nearly good enough. There's no netfront threat or bumper (hash marks/ slot) presence to offset it, either. Entries are noticeably better on average than last season. The puck movement is better. They're starting to figure out who can play the point, and who is ineffective at the point. But the personnel usage at times has been fair game for second-guessing, and the execution is still unreliable.
In fairness, the Flyers' power play was horrible before Rocky Thompson came in. The team's 12.6 percent power play scoring rate in 2021-22 was officially the worst categorical season in franchise history. The NHL only started officially tracking power play data in 1977-78. Unofficially, however, 2021-22 was the second-worst PP season in franchise history. Box-score based research shows that the Flyers were 12.3 percent on the power play in the inaugural 1967-68 season.
Keep in mind, too, that the Flyers have had a revolving door of power play coaches since general manager Ron Hextall elected not to renew the contract of longtime PP coach Joe Mullen (who is now retired from NHL coaching) and hired Kris Knoblauch (now Edmonton Oilers head coach) as his replacement in 2017. After Knoblauch's two seasons as the assistant coach in charge of the forwards and the power play, general manger Chuck Fletcher let him go after the 2018-19 season (20.7 percent power play in both 2017-18 and 2019-20).
When Alain Vigneault was hired as head coach in 2019-20, he brought old friend and former NHL head coach Michel Therrien to run the power play and coach the forwards. The Flyers power play was 17.1 percent in 2019-20, 19.3 percent in the 48-game 2020-21 season and was at 12.2 percent at the time Vigneault and Therrien were dismissed during the 2021-2022 season. On January 22, 2022, the Flyers hired John Torchetti to finish the season as the power play/forwards coach under interim head coach Mike Yeo. The PP remained largely dormant. It took two Flyers power play goals in the season finale to finish at 12.6 percent.
That's the backdrop under which Thompson joined the Flyers: steep decline in the 2020s (even before Claude Giroux was traded to Ottawa) and a series of short-tenured predecessors as PP coach. For those two reasons, I'm inclined to cut more slack to Thompson than the masses. It's too easy to always scapegoat one PP coach after another.
Last season, the Flyers power play still finished last in the NHL, although the 15.6 percent success rate was at least a baby step forward from the 12.6 percent rate during 2021-22. Now the Flyers are right back at 12.6 percent for the 2023-24 campain.
In the big picture, I DO think the power play under Thompson has taken small steps toward fixing a broken process in his roughly 1 2/3 seasons. But I also don't see dramatically better PP outcomes on the horizon until there are flank, bumper and netfront threats established. That's not all on Thompson -- the organization itself must acquire/draft/develop some power play finishers -- but the assistant coach needs to show that he can at least help the power play not be 31st or 32nd in the league. Even something like 24th or 25th would mean some extra wins.
Matvei Michkov looks to have the makings of a major dual threat on the power play. He's a deadly finisher and a very clever passer if a PK overplays on him. But who knows when Michkov will actually arrive, and the other personnel will be by then. Also, Philly will still need more netfront presence and an established PP1 point/pinch scorer by that time.
8) In terms of the overall player/coach dynamic, Tortorella has noted repeatedly that the coaches do not have to be in the locker room nearly as much this season and they did a year ago. That's been a major positive. The players self-manage a lot better.
That does not mean, however, that the only time the players get feedback from Tortorella or Thompson should be -- either verbally or via video sessions -- where there's a negative. Tortorella, who has said many times that he views confrontation as a positive, is not typically much of a verbal one-on-one communicator to players. If he's happy or unhappy with a player, he'll tell it to the media (depending on the circumstance and his mood at time). He'll express it via playing time. But he's not one to initiate many one-on-one dialogues.
Tortorella is a veteran coach and his methods work for him. Even so, the occasional bit of well-earned one-on-one praise can be a good thing sometimes.
9) Ever since Morgan Frost, took the initiative last month to ask Tortorella for a one-on-one meeting -- and, by all accounts, openly disagreed with the head coach's assessments about certain topics while admitting to the areas the player himself felt he needed improvement -- the 24-year-old center has backed it up on the ice. Most notably, in the 16-game span since then, Frost (4g, 11a, 15 points) leads the Flyers in scoring despite being seventh in average ice time (15:53) among the team's forwards.
After Tuesday's game against Arizona, I asked Frost if he's gotten feedback from the organization about his play -- specifically about how well he's been using his legs, which is a vital key to Frost's A game -- since he initiated the meeting with Tortorella.
"No, maybe from you [media] guys a little bit,” he said. “I think when I am (using my legs effectively) I can kind of assess myself that way. That’s when I know I am playing my best.”
After Monday's morning skate, Tortorella was asked about Frost. The coach started out by saying there's still some inconsistency with the player -- not every game is his A game -- but he likes the increased assertiveness. He specifically added that he thinks Frost has been attacking through the middle of the ice more effectively and heading less to the perimeter.
That's a fair assessment. I'll add to that, though, that Frost will probably always be more of a playmaker than a goal scorer. Many of his assists come from him taking the puck to the outside, finding a seam and getting a teammate the puck. A better blending of the two options could help him keep up his production. Also, NOW people are seeing what an outstanding skater that Frost really is. He can vary the pace, use his edges well or take off straight ahead if there's daylight.
In the bigger picture, the Flyers don't have any other true playmaking centers at the NHL level. They also don't much in the prospect pipeline in that regard. Frost is needed here to bring those elements. Otherwise, there's too much redundancy down the middle. Sometimes, the best trades a team can make are the ones they don't make.
That applies to Frost. Unless Danny Briere gets blown away with a trade option that would involve dealing Frost, the player should be part of the group with whom the organization plans to move forward. Briere, thankfully, has always been a believer in Frost's abilities and an advocate for patience with him even when others have itched to pull the plug.
As noted earlier, there are many things for which I believe Tortorella has made very valuable contributions thus far in his coaching tenure. This is a more structured, more competitive, more self-realizing and more on-the-same-page club. The head coach and his staff deserve open praise for those things.
That doesn't mean, though, that Tortorella is always right in his assessments or beyond reproach in all in-the-moment or big-picture decisions.
Torts got it wrong with Frost. Last season, he was too quick to dispatch Frost to the fourth line for three weeks in late October to late November. That's often a death spiral for skill players. At least when Mike Yeo put Frost on the "third line" for a full month with AHL/NHL borderline players Gerry Mayhew and Max Willman, there was a purpose to it.
Yeo said the goal was for Frost to focus on using his feet/legs more consistently. His linemates lacked in other areas to be NHL regulars but one thing they absolutely did regularly was play at a fast pace. Yeo's belief was that, while Frost was unlikely to put up many points on that line (he didn't), the points would start to come more regularly once the player moved up in the lineup as long as he brought the pacing with him.
By contrast, Frost's 10-game dispatchment to the bottom of the lineup from the end of October to latter part of November -- plus a healthy scratch in front of his family and friends in Toronto -- had no discernable end game to it. Tortorella openly said that, while management told him about Frost's skill, he wasn't seeing it (never mind that he led the team in preseason scoring and then scored two goals on opening night). The head coach seemed to make up his mind pretty quickly that Frost wasn't going to be part of the long-term vision.
To Tortorella's credit, though, once he put Frost together with Owen Tippett and James van Riemsdyk, he kept Frost in the lineup the rest of the season. Frost soon took playing time away from Kevin Hayes after Hayes averaged a point per game over the first two months of the season. That was a decision made by Tortorella himself and it was the right one in a rebuild.
Although there was still some inconsistency, the bottom line is that Frost led the Flyers in scoring over the final two-thirds of last season (and, yes, Konecny's six-week injury absence was why Frost led the team in points in that span rather than being second). There were still areas Frost needed to improve but even Tortorella noted that he showed significant growth in the defensive side of his game on top of the point production uptick.
Frost led the Flyers in preseason scoring again this year. Given what Torts called "a good camp" pverall plus whatever "trust credit" I thought he'd built over the last two-thirds of 2022-23, I thought the coach had started to come around on the idea of Frost being part of his longer-term vision of the Flyers.
That lasted all of two games. Frost opened the 2023-24 campaign with two meh games. So did others (Noah Cates and Owen Tippett, especially in a Saturday afternoon game in Ottawa). Then Frost was scratched for the next six games.
All along, Tortorella said, "It's not that he played badly the first two games. But others were playing better." (To which could have truthfully been added "others were playing better.... and some were not, but only one guy is sitting).
When Frost finally got back into the lineup, he created eight high-grade scoring chances in a three-game span. I blogged about that stretch with both video and stats to back it up. While Frost himself was responsible for three prime scoring chances of his own that did not get finished, he could not be faulted for linemates' struggles to finish any of the chances he created in that span. In fact, Frost played at a similar level in that stretch to his recent play, minus the payoff on the scoreboard.
In Frost's fourth game back, the Flyers got shut out at home by the LA Kings. The Flyers experimented throughout that game with Frost as the net-front forward on the first power play unit. That's an unnatural and ill-suited role for him.
Frost was then a healthy scratch when the Flyers began a west coast trip with a game against a winless San Jose Sharks team. Tortorella said that he was fine with Frost's all-around play over the previous four games, but "if he's going to be in the lineup, he has to produce offense."
That, quite frankly, was laughable and wrong. Not even Konecny was finishing Grade A chances Frost had set up over the previous four games, nor were Tippett or Tyson Foerster. Additionally, a primary assist (and an Egor Zamula secondary assist) on a Louie Belpedio goal in Buffalo was deducted later on a scoring change from a Buffalo blocked shot to a giveaway onto Belpedio's stick. It was just a hard-luck stretch. The chance creation was there.
When Frost got back into the lineup one game later, he started a four-game point streak (including two goals in a road win over LA). In his fifth game back, Frost had an undeniably poor game in a home win over Vegas (except for four shot blocks; one of the little areas that are a non-negotiable).
Frost was promptly yanked from the lineup again. This time he sat out for the eight, ninth, and 10th times of the season. So much more "needs to produce points to stay in the lineup". The goal post apparently shifted again. Tortorella was not in a talking mood when asked about it, saying "because he deserved to come out" and that it was not a tough decision to do so.
When Frost finally did get back in again, he was undeniably inconsistent. He had some decent games but also several lackluster ones, especially during a post-Christmas four-game road trip. When the team returned home, both Frost and Atkinson were scratched in a home shootout loss to Columbus.
To be honest, I didn't personally have an issue with either player being scratched for January 4 game against the Blue Jackets. Atkinson had been fighting it for seven weeks at that point and Frost was wildly uneven during the four-game trip. In this others, others truly were playing better. On the flip side, it was the 11th time Frost had been scratched this season: far more than deserved or fair when other players being counted for offense, too, went through month-plus long barren stretches of production and were taking numerous bad penalties to boot.
Note: Frost himself took several bad penalties in a stretch of a home game against New Jersey and a home-and-home against the Penguins. He's now gone two months without being called for a single penalty. There were a couple that could be called.
At any rate, it was on Jan.5 that Frost requested -- and was granted by Tortorella -- a face-to-face meeting in the coach's office. My own beliefs (and I know that many disagree, which is fine): 1) Frost never should have been scratched so many times this season; 2) I don't think it needed to come to a player-initiated open discussion/confrontation, even though Tortorella is a believer that it's how to build coach/player relationships; 3) Frost's surges both last season and this season would have happened sooner of he'd been prioritized by the head coach on the same basis as other under-25 players on the team; 4) Frost, like all players is ultimately responsible for his own play when he's on the ice and neither the first two games of the season nor the post-Christmas road trip were up to par for him; 5) I s still do not believe that Frost will get the same leeway as some of his teammates the next time he or they have a temporary dip in their play for a few games. They happen to everyone over the course of the marathon season. The key is to work through it as soon as possble.
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