It has been a trying start to the season for the Philadelphia Flyers, who were a surprise playoff team last year with one of the league's youngest rosters. Their impact players are still basically all 25 and younger, so some growing pains were to be expected. But things started brutally on Day 1 and haven't gotten much better: at 3-7-4 they are last in the East, despite having played more games than anyone else.
The young fellas are mostly getting their goals—Trevor Zegras, Matvei Michkov, and Porter Martone are top three on the team in points; Denver Barkey, in his first full season, is still scuffling a bit—but there's more to NHL success than scoring. That's the message head coach Rick Tocchet is trying to drill into his charges. Even a slightly better record in overtimes (0-4, only one of those reaching a shootout) would have the Flyers sitting a little prettier, but they are proving less than adept at protecting the puck. Yes, a scoring chance looks very appealing at 3-on-3, but the Flyers skaters are acting like they've forgetten that the puck can go the other way.
Consider Tuesday night at home against Columbus. The Blue Jackets jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but Philly dominated the rest of regulation and roared back to tie the game with 11 seconds left. Then, in overtime, Michkov got stripped soon after entering the attacking zone, something that can't happen as the trailer. Cole Sillinger and Zach Werenski went the other way on the juiciest 2-on-0 you'll see see (until 30 seconds later), and only a nifty Dan Vladar stop kept the game alive.
In Michkov's defense, he was at the end of a double shift—though possibly as an ad-lib on his part. (In the opposite of Michkov's defense, last night Long Island's Matthew Schaefer became the first NHLer to play all five minutes of overtime.)
"Overtime, some of the guys are—I don’t know what they’re doing,” Tocchet said. “We had a meeting about it; we sent them video on it. It’s all puck possession, it’s being smart, and we give up two two-on-nones. It’s unacceptable.”
I imagine there will be more meetings and more video in the Flyers' future. Because, half a minute after Vladar bailed out his skaters, they did the damn thing again. All three Flyers swarmed the netfront on a rebound, visions of putbacks dancing in their heads. Stop me if you've heard this before: 2-on-0 for Columbus the other way.
This time Kent Johnson and Adam Fantilli were not to be denied. After scoring, Johnson displayed something that looked like relief and incredulity, something like, Thank god we didn't screw it up again, but I can't believe they gave us another one.
“The decision-making in overtime has been mind-boggling by some players. We have to fix it,” Tocchet said. "You’re going to have some bad things happen to you. But you need to stop the bad things." Tocchet's coaching reputation is as the guy you bring in to help a talented but underachieving squad shape up. He worked wonders last year, but that honeymoon's long over. Yes, his players need to stop the bad things, but more to the point for his job security, he needs them to stop the bad things.
