Quick Hits: February 28, 2024
1) The Philadelphia Flyers rode a five-goal outburst in the third period to a 6-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning at Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday evening. Twelve different Flyers players recorded at least one point in the game, and six different players scored a goal. Samuel Ersson turned back 21 of 23 shots to earn the win in net. Philadelphia also blocked 23 Tampa shot attempts. For a full period-by-period recap, analysis, highlights and more, see the Postgame 5 on PhiladelphiaFlyers.com: Click here.
2) At 6:17 of the first period, there was a power outage in the Wells Fargo Center. After the power went out, following roughly a 12-minute delay, the rest of the period was played with auxiliary power and manual timekeeping at the scorer's table. The scoreboard clock was out and there was no real-time scoring statistics immediately available. The house lights came back up on the ice early in the second period. The public address system followed a little later. The scoreboard and auxiliary boards remained non-functional the rest of the game, but at least the ice was eventually illuminated more normally. The first period was like a game from the 1960s with the shadows on the ice.
3) Andrei Vasilevskiy had phenomenal career stats against the Flyers heading into last night's game: 13-3-0 record, 2.29 goals against average, .929 save percentage and three shutouts. Perhaps he was due for a night where he looked quite human. Vasilevskiy had a way-below average night against Philly last night -- really, by any NHL goaltending standard, but especially by his own.
The Flyers were defensively stingy in the low-event first period. The Lightning carried the majority of the second period play, but neither team generated all that much quality. Philly dominated the third period. Vasilevskiy's struggles, which included a pair of short-side goals and continuing to the bench for an extra attacker when he saw (or should have seen) a neutral zone turnover right in front of him, leading to a Noah Cates empty net goal, was an unexpected gift. Even so, the Flyers deserved the win, whatever the final score.
5) From what I have heard regarding Travis Konecny's upper-body injury, the issue he's dealing with is one of those nebulous issues to try to pin a timetable. He's listed as day-to-day, and that could be the case. Or, in an unfavorable scenario, it could go week-to-week.
I was told this directly, without being offered details on the exact injury. Circumstantially, based on video from last week's practice just before he left the ice, it looked like a possible oblique muscle strain.
Fair to say that TK didn’t even get touched https://t.co/twxVPT3EW6 pic.twitter.com/9l1q2ZoK21
— Christopher Maher (@_ChrisMaher) February 23, 2024
6) Flyers rookie winger Bobby Brink is a very easy young man to root for: upbeat, enjoys himself at the rink, works on his game, and clearly very skilled and creative with the puck. He's well-liked by teammates, coaches and reporters alike. IT was particularly nice to see him score a goal off the rush on his first shift of his first game back in the NHL after being recalled from the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Brink had hit a wall for a few weeks and found himself by January in the worst possible situation for a young "skills" player in the NHL: relegated to the fourth line (or the scratch list), and not being put in position to succeed. Segments of legacy media counting up zeroes in the points columns with no context about the situations he was and wasn't playing and how hard it is to get skipped in line rotations when you do play and then be expected to make a play in short order the next shift (whenever that may come).
Brink found himself in pretty much the same situation Morgan Frost found himself placed in for roughly three weeks from the end of October to late November 2022. Tortorella harped a couple of times publicly on things he didn't like about the player's game -- in Brink's case, not "checking forward" consistently enough and playing consistently to the NHL pace -- rather than what he's shown he has the ability to do.
To me, Tortorella's biggest strength as a coach is his understanding and implementation of structure and clear establishment of non-negotiable expectations for every player. His biggest weakness, and it goes back in his career to his handling of a player such as Mats Zuccarello, is that he really isn't good at knowing what do with young skill forwards until he gets to the point where there's enough trust to let them do their thing and not overcoach or punish their weaknesses. That's why Travis Konecny (already a veteran by the time Tortorella arrived) and Owen Tippett have thrived: Tortorella got to a point where he let them be themselves and took the good with the not-as-good aspects.
I hope Tortorella eventually gets to that point with Brink as well as with Frost. That doesn't mean there are things these players still don't need to work on: in Frost's case, using his legs consistently even on nights where he has to manufacture the energy. With Brink, who lacks the sort of natural skating ability Frost has, it's compensation via quickness. It doesn't mean greater consistency isn't needed from those players in their 200-foot games. It is.
It just means this: Keep sending them over the boards and let them rise or fall on the merits of what got them to the NHL in the first place, which is their respective playmaking abilities.
When Brink was recently sent down to the Phantoms, I found it preferable to keeping him in that fourth-line/ scratch list place he was in January. By all accounts -- Phantoms head coach Ian Laperriere, Flyers assistant general manager Brent Flahr and others -- Brink handled the demotion like a true pro. He didn't sulk or pout. He didn't go through the motions in AHL games. He kept the smile on his face, enjoyed his large-scale ice time, and continued working on elevating his all-around game.
As Tortorella stated on Tuesday, Brink didn't get all the way to where they wanted his checking and pacing to be. It wasn't realistic to expect a huge evolution in 11 games. The initial word that I heard was, "Unless Brink goes nuts offensively down there, he isn't going to just score his way back up to the NHL until he works through other stuff." However, practicality ruled the day in the end.
The Flyers NEED some more offense in their lineup. Scoot Laughton's seven-game point streak was a boon, but it wasn't going to suddenly become his offensive norm. Meanwhile, Konecny is injured and a host of players have struggled offensively in recent weeks until the club's outburst of 12 goals in the last two games (which is, too, a blip on the radar screen, because this club is not some offensive juggernaut). Brink is a player who can elevate the skill level in the forward group.
Bottom line: Brink needs to play in the NHL with skilled linemates, get consistent PP time with a regular group on teammates on his unit, be allowed to make his mistakes and evolve organically without being yo-yoed in and out of the top nine. If "Torts" can keep sending out defensively sound players who've sometimes gone entire months with no goals and perhaps two or three assists, he can hand with skill players who aren't always assets in other areas.
6) Sean Couturier was dropped to the fourth line at 5-on-5 (although he saw spot shifts higher in the rotation) on Tuesday. Tortorella said that he cannot afford to wait any longer for Couturier, Cam Atkinson (benched in the third period on Sunday, a healthy scratch on Tuesday) or other struggling players to recover their games.
Tortorella also denied that there is any "minutes management" component to Couturier's reduction in ice time in recent weeks, saying that it's strictly performance-based.
My perspective, though, is that a total lack of workload management for Couturier (coming off a season-and-a-half absence due to two back surgeries) played into why he's now been struggling for about the last six weeks. Couturier averaged slightly north of 20 minutes a night of ice time through his first 40 games this season.
Much like an ace pitcher coming off two years of arm trouble and then being asked to absorb heavy innings right off the bat straight through midseason, there was a major risk of a second-half dropoff in performance from Couturier.
This is no just convenient second-guessing, either. It was a concern that I voiced all along. Re-lsten to the midseason Flyers Daily podcast I did with Jason Myrtetus in early January during the section where we discuss what had gone right with Couturier -- looked close to his old self, albeit with a few minor dips in the first half -- but also Jason and my mutual concerns that Couturier was being over-used after his long absence and the risks of hitting a wall before the stretch drive). Unfortunately, that's how it has been playing out as the start of March looms.
During the Flyers five-game winning streak in the middle one-third of January, Couturier missed two games due to a mid/lower body injury. The player, who was named team captain shortly before the Stadium Series, has never been one to make excuses and isn't about to start now. He's said that he feels fine.
Whatever the case, though, Couturier has not looked like himself -- yes, for a shift here or there, perhaps even for the majority of the odd game or two -- for any sort of a sutained basis. It's NOT just that his offensive pace has dropped off a cliff or that he's been on the ice of a very uncharactertistic volume of opposing goals. His game itself is off in just about every area except in the faceoff circle.
Tortorella can get in the player's face on the bench if he wants to. That's a coach's prerogative, and he used it in the Seattle game (to which Couturier then scored one of just two goals he's scored since the calendar flipped to 2024, and let out a cathartic response). It's the coach's prerogative to say in a press conference that he can't wait anymore for Couturier and Atkinson to get back atop their games.
Tortorella has his methonds of motivating, and they work for him. However, accountability is a two-way straight. I'd like to see Tortorella put a little self-accountability to his "tough-love" bluntless and say that the here-and-now drive of single-minded focus of trying to win game-to-game might have played into why the drop-off has been so steep in latter January and the near entirety of February. Again, this dropoff didn't just come of the blue. It was predictable and at least somewhat manageable on the front end.
That's how I see it. It isn't gospel. I could be wrong.
7) With Atkinson, it's a bit more complicated. What's not complicated is that I have zero doubt that Tortorella is 100 percent sincere in expressing how much professional respect he has for Couturier and how much professional AND personal admiration he has for Atkinson. There is a bonafide friendship between Tortorella and Atkinson that has grown over the years.
Prior to the Flyers' hiring of Tortorella in the summer of 2022, no one advocated publicly (and, no doubt, privately as well) on behalf of his hiring than Atkinson. He said -- and was right -- that the Flyers needed structure and they needed to get back some swagger. Those are two things Tortorella absolutely brings to the table and has helped infuse. I don't think "Torts" is always right, but I also have to give full credit for what I think he does masterfully.
I'm sure it's personally hard on Tortorella to bench Atkinson, as he did in the third period on Sunday in Pittsburgh and to scratch him on Tuesday. Hockeywise, though, both men knew it was the right decision. Atkinson has really, really been struggling in his game.
Here's the complicated part: How much does Atkinson have left in the tank? I don't know.
He got off to a quick start this season, at least offensively. Then he hit a wall and experienced a career-worst 26 game goal drought. Much more so than Couturier, as I saw it, Atkinson had the expected adrenaline-driven burst to start the season after missing all of last season due to a nightmarish situation with a neck injury and eventual disc fusion surgery.
Atkinson was scratched for one game at the nadir of the 26-game goal drought. From there, you could see him getting closer and closer to a breakthrough, even before he had a two-goal game in Winnipeg. It was like a boulder had been lifted off him. Atkinson proceeded to rattle off a six-game point streak (five goals, five assists, 10 points).
Ever since then, though, it's been another massive struggle for Atkinson. His ice time decreased and led up to his second healthy scratching of the season.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned about Atkinson's play. It's never been a question of work ethic or desire or mental toughness. But it's also not like he carries the heavy PK workload anymore that he carried for much of the career in Columbus and during his first season as a Flyer. There have been games where he has played a lot of minutes and games where he played moderate minutes. I would describe the usage of Couturier as "burning the candle at both ends" into mid-January and then reduced time in February. That wasn't really the case with Atkinson on an every-game basis for a full half-season. It was more staggered with him.
On the flip side, I can't just forget that run of 10 points in six games before the current struggles. Atkinson didn't seem "finished" by any stretch of the imagination during that spell, although fluctuations are normal and expected. The current stretch has gone on for too long, however, and it's very concerning in light of the 26-game goalless spell he endured earlier this season.
As with Brink, Atkinson is a very easy player to like and root for. I truly want to be confident that he'll have another strong run in him during a stretch drive or beyond -- just as he showed for much of the latter portion of last month. Being brutally honest, though, I do have concerns about a timely bounce-back run because of how long the last period of struggle lasted.
8) Just as with Atkinson, I had absolutely zero gripes about Frost being benched in the third period in Pittsburgh. The center didn't have much of anything going that game.
The energy dipped noticeably. He kept getting jammed within moments of touching the puck and possession would be lost. When he did keep the puck for more than a second or two, he'd be reactive rather than creative and would force plays that weren't there to be made.
I defended Frost's games in Chicago last Wednesday and on Saturday against the Rangers. No, he didn't finish a few Grade A chances in key situations (nor did teammates finish off any he created). But I thought he was creating a lot of offense in those two games, and that's the main thing the Flyers need from him. Sometimes, he'll break a few eggs (i.e., turn pucks over) but I thought a lot more good than bad happened with him on the ice against the Blackhawks and Rangers.
Sunday was a different story. I intensely disliked his performance in Pittsburgh. Frost fully deserved to sit in the third period and for others who DID have it rolling (such as Olle Lycksell) to take some of the minutes. Frost bounced back on Tuesday with a pretty good game against the Lightning.
9) I am not surprised in the least by Sam Ersson's strong outings since a tough night in the Stadium Series game. Ersson usually give the Flyers a legit chance to win. When he does have the periodic bad night/bad goal, it doesn't linger. He bounces right back.
Flyers had a good 1A/1B thing going in the duo of Carter Hart and Ersson that, obviously, is no longer the case due to Hart's legal issues stemming from the London, Ontario, sexual assault charges against Hart and four other teammates from Canada's 2017-18 WJC roster.
The Flyers had a relatively light schedule on February: not in terms of difficulty of opposition but in terms of the volume of games. The Flyers were able to give Ersson seven starts without overtaxing him. Cal Petersen got the other two starts, with one that went well and one that was disastrous.
Come March, the Flyers will play 15 games in a span of 30 days, starting with a stretch of three games in four nights. Later, there's a brutally difficult three-in-four/ four-in-six stretch from March 21 to 26 with games against Carolina (road), Boston (home), Florida (home) and the New York Rangers (road). Realistically, the Flyers can comfortably split the work with 11 or 12 games for Ersson and three or four for Petersen or whomever the backup is as the month develops.
Currently, Felix Sandström is not a reliable alternative to Petersen. Sandström, who had rocky night in Charlotte on Saturday despite the Phantoms comeback OT win, has been every bit as inconsistent at the AHL level this season as Petersen. Swapping out the two for another changes the handedness (Petersen catches right, Sandström catches left) but it doesn't really upgrade the level of confidence that one or two leaky goals won't happen along the way in any given start.
No one has said to me directly, but I think right now, the Flyers are hoping that a veteran NHL goalie such as ex-Flyer Martin Jones comes across the waiver wire. If so, I'd be surprised if Philly did not put in a claim.
10) The Flyers originally had a noon practice scheduled for Wednesday as well as an 11 a.m. practice slated at the FTC on Thursday. Tortorella decided to give the team a total off-day on Wednesday: 100 percent the right call after playing three games in four nights.
The Flyers will resume practice on Thursday, as per the workplan. The club will then head to DC. On Friday evening, the Flyers will pay a visit to the Washington Capitals.
11) I had planned to cover practice on Wednesday before the news of the cancelation was announced. On Thursday, the Flyers Alumni Association is launching a new pickleball program and I will be there for the launch. One of these days, I'll even try the fast-growing sport out for myself. But for right now, I have to confess that I hardly know anything about what it is or how to play it, except that it's kind of like badminton oe like pingpong with a whiffle ball and bigger court. So I'd like to try it out on my own a time or two first before I embarrass myself in front of the Alumni!