Assistant coach and then acting head coach, Rocky Thompson, had some choice words during one of the intermissions of their eventual loss to the St. Louis Blues last Tuesday night.
With John Tortorella in the press box once more, Thompson was extremely disappointed and bothered with the effort from some of his players and didn’t mince his words either.
“I just said, ‘It’s not about X’s and O’s, and quite frankly it looks like some guys in here don’t even care, they’re just not trying. I said, ‘I’m not going to call anybody out individually, but your teammates know, and you know, and I’ll give everybody another chance here and if you do it, I’ll keep playing you. If you’re not, I’m not going to play you.
“I don’t have that authority typically as an assistant coach and I’m a little bit more of the good guy, when you’re the assistant coach, but at the end of the day, black is black and white is white. I think the message got through.”
Then after the game he echoed the same message.
“I don’t think we competed at all, in the very beginning. Sometimes it’s not just competing up ice, but it’s competing in your own end. And I thought we were sitting back – we just weren’t working at all. I just thought some individuals were just going through the motions and fortunate for us, it changed, but it was too little too late. A good lesson to learn.”
Thompson didn’t “name names” but it’s not lost on any of us who he was referring to. The veterans have shown a lack of effort, heart, and enthusiasm that the other players have countered with. James van Riemsdyk, Kevin Hayes, and Tony DeAngelo automatically come to mind. Ivan Provorov is another name to mention only because he hasn’t played at his best, but he also hasn’t been bad – he’s sort of in the middle, which is neither helpful nor a total hindrance for the team.
Maybe being veterans makes them see the game differently and with the losses building up over the years – and maybe in van Riemsdyk’s case with the trade deadline debacle still on his mind – there’s a lack of guile from them.
The losses have piled up for Hayes, van Riemsdyk, and Provorov for 3-4-5 years now, and it’s starting to show in their on-ice play that they don’t care. It’s too obvious and thankfully for all parties, the season is coming to a rapid end.
Hayes entered Sunday’s game against the Boston Bruins with 1 goal and 7 points in his last 25 games, van Riemsdyk entered the game with 3 goals and 7 points in his last 29 games, DeAngelo had 2 goals and 11 points in his last 23 games, and Provorov had 5 points in his last 29 games, which included a 9-game pointless drought. Provorov and DeAngelo were averaging almost 2 less minutes of ice time during their stretches than their season totals, and Hayes and van Riemsdyk were averaging less than a minute than their season totals.
Not only have they lost their scoring touch, they’ve also lost their usual ice time, their roles have diminished, and the verbiage from the front office and Tortorella would dictate that changes are afoot, and public enemy number one would be those who are coasting to the finish line.
Hayes understands what Tortorella and the Flyers are trying to do.
“Yeah, I mean, my role has tremendously changed. They’re building for the future. You can see who’s part of it and who isn’t. My role has been diminishing for months here. I’ve accepted it.”
Earlier in the season, Tortorella had this to say about DeAngelo.
“Last team he played for – Carolina – I think they could absorb some of that with their roster as far as maybe some of the deficiencies defensively. It kind of sticks out more with us. I think he’s one some great things for us here. It’s just…we want to try to help him and we feel he needs to get better defensively without taking away any of that great offensive ability he has.
“We know what Tony is. I’m a little bit, not disappointed, but the defensive liability is something we need to work at. I didn’t think the amount of work that we need to do with him…I didn’t think that at the point in time that we got him. But it is what it is.”
The Flyers have used the 11 forwards/7 defenseman formation quite often this season but have never gone the other way with it. They dressed 13 forwards and only 5 defensemen against the now 63-win Bruins.
Nick Seeler was ruled out due to an illness and Ronnie Attard was already sent down to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, so that meant they could’ve gone back to DeAngelo for the regular 12/6 formation. However, they decided to echo the message that they won’t take lackadaisical effort lightly and decided to keep him scratched for the third straight game.
Tortorella when asked about his decision to scratch DeAngelo again and skating 5 defensemen only said,
“Just our decision. Haven’t talked to him.”
As for the Flyers’ main focus, it has firmly shifted towards younger players like Noah Cates, Morgan Frost, Owen Tippett, Cam York, and Tyson Foerster whenever he was in the lineup. That focus wasn’t just because they were young and playing meaningless hockey, it was because they deserved the extra ice time, competed all season, and haven’t given up.
They have also caught the eye of their head coach who is going to have a lot of say in terms of player personnel moving forward.
On Tyson Foerster:
“I need to temper myself, I’ve seen it. But you have to temper yourself as I’m thinking about next year. And have him go through camp. I hope he goes through a long playoff run with Lehigh. And then we’ll see where he sits as we go through. The way he’s handled himself, it’s encouraging.”
On Noah Cates earlier in the season:
“I didn’t know anybody when I came here, I didn’t know who Noah Cates was, but he has grown into the position, deservedly so. We try to be as fair as possible with our assessments of players and give them ice time accordingly. Everything he’s getting, he deserves.”
After Tortorella’s toilet seat reference of Morgan Frost:
“We know he has skill. We need to keep on seeing the skill. But for a coach to put a player on the ice that he’s still not sure of, that other stuff has to be sound. And I think he’s really improved there.”
Interim General Manager, Daniel Brière, is going to be a busy man this offseason and even though the Flyers haven’t named a President of Hockey Operations just yet, they are doing their due diligence and will be working hard before the draft to find the right fit.
In the meantime, Tortorella has acclimated himself in the press box and next to Brière since Chuck Fletcher was relieved of his duties. It’s an old school move to hand power over to your head coach, but he was brought in to change the identity, instill a system, and get them out of the basement of relevancy.
Kevin Hayes has 3 years left at a cap hit of $7.142 million, James van Riemsdyk is an unrestricted free agent, Tony DeAngelo has one year remaining at $5 million, and Ivan Provorov has 2 years left at an AAV of $6.75 million.
There is interest for Hayes, believe it or not, and a trade isn’t far-fetched if the Flyers are willing to retain somewhere around $2 million dollars for the rest of his contract. Columbus is interested, and before the trade deadline teams like Colorado, Carolina, and Boston had interest of their own. Provorov has received trade interest for 3 years so it all boils down to whether or not they are ready to move on, and DeAngelo will be a rental at best, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find a suitor at some point.
If the Lehigh Valley Phantoms weren’t in a playoff hunt the last few weeks and had they not clinched a playoff spot, the Flyers would’ve used several prospects for a much longer period of time. Tyson Foerster, Elliot Desnoyers, Ronnie Attard, Egor Zamula, and Samuel Ersson all had some kind of run with the Flyers this season but were always going sent down to help the Phantoms on their march to the playoffs. Players like Bobby Brink might’ve gotten the call as well, but it’s probably a better thing that he and others are getting the playoff experience and playing meaningful hockey down in the AHL.
If Seeler isn’t ready to return tonight against the Columbus Blue Jackets, it would be interesting to see if DeAngelo sits in the press box for the 4th consecutive game. With only 2 games left in the season, the Flyers could effectively be ending his year 5 games short of the finish line, but it’s a loud message to the leader in points of their abysmal backend; that even in a lost season like 2022-23, no matter who you are, you have to come to the rink with your full effort and that’s been Tortorella’s MO since day 1.
It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s game 7, game 38, game 61, or game 79, if you don’t show the coaching staff some fight, heart, effort, or determination, you won’t be playing much, and your future in Philadelphia could be over before you even know it.
These are trying times in Philadelphia, but at least the problems are being identified. It’s only a matter of time before those problems find resolutions but at least there’s some clarity on the future, compared to past seasons where we had no idea what was coming.
This time, it’s not just the frustrated fan base calling out the players for another failed season, it’s the coaching staff identifying the problems and making the best of a bad situation with only a few games left in the season but having an eye towards the offseason.
Tortorella did comment on Provorov’s toughness and willingness to stay in the game after what looked like a severe injury against Boston on Sunday.
“I was surprised when he came back. It just doesn’t surprise me…that is the way he is. Just doesn’t stay down. I watched him earlier this year, we were practicing & he gets cut, a pretty good cut. Probably had five minutes left in practice, he gets stitched up, and gets out there and probably gets two or three of those minutes. We can piss and moan as coaches when he struggles sometimes and he is frustrating to me at times, but how he handles himself, not too many players that go about it that way.”
Comments like that make it a reality that the Flyers are still 50/50 on whether or not they want to part ways with Provorov. He would be one of the few players that could get them exactly what they would want in order to start their rebuild, but without him on the roster or in the lineup, their defense takes a huge fall off a cliff.
There’s no mincing of words from Tortorella and that has been the case all season long. His thoughts on DeAngelo and Hayes make it almost a certainty that they won’t return, but how he’s praised Provorov makes us wonder what the Flyers will do with one of their better trade assets.
With Provorov, Travis Konecny, and even Carter Hart, it’s anyone’s guess what they do with their 3 core players who could net them a large return. Tortorella is a big fan of all 3 players, and with some say and sway in roster personnel next year, maybe they give it one last crack of the whip.
However, with how the coaching staff have handled their business since Fletcher was relieved of his duties, especially with Tortorella being in the press box and in Daniel Brière’s ears, it very clearly echoes that players like Hayes and DeAngelo are not in the plans for next season and should be met with a split this summer.
