By Nick Tricome
Copyright phillyvoice
The Philadelphia Flyers touched a puck on the first day of training camp, for the first time in three years.
There’s no more rope, the notorious John Tortorella signature of a hellish Day 1 bag skate, but that part of camp was always going to be different.
The real change for the players on the ice Thursday morning in Voorhees was that there was no conditioning at all. New head coach Rick Tocchet jumped straight into establishing systems and concepts, the Flyers’ new “staples” as he called them.
Tocchet trusted the players to be in shape and ready, he told the local media at the Flyers Training Center after Thursday’s first practice. So instead of skating both the new and old faces into the ground, he moved them straight into adapting how the team should play from here on out.
First and foremost, he wants the Flyers to hold on to the puck.
“I expect them to work hard,” Tocchet said. “I don’t have to get it out of them, in a sense. I need to get these guys in concepts, what we want to do. We need to hold on to pucks. We don’t wanna throw pucks [away]. We wanna be a better possession team, you know? So we got to work on that stuff.”
But obviously, Tocchet continued, they’re not going to take all of that in within a single day.
It’ll be an adjustment from the past couple of years, for sure.
Under Tortorella, speed, relentless checking, and jumping on opponents in transition up the ice combined into the style that the Flyers adhered to.
Two years ago, it resulted in a surprise playoff push that stalled out, but did carry all the way to Game 82.
Last year, the momentum was lost. Players either got banged up, regressed, or did both. Tortorella’s message rapidly wore thin , and down the stretch, the team spiraled until the organization made the call to fire him.
Tocchet is changing up the approach.
He’ll still be holding his team accountable, but realizes there’s only so much time in camp to implement a new system under a new coaching staff before opening night arrives.
“It’s gonna take some time, you know? They’re gonna have to get used to some of the stuff that we’re gonna do,” Tocchet said. “But they should be working hard. I shouldn’t have to demand it out of them. If there’s times when I have to, I will. But right now, for me, the concepts and systems and details, we call it ‘staples,’ like the details of handling the puck off the wall or in a certain situation that comes, that’s what we’ll continue to work on.”
Hopefully, with a personnel better shaped to excel at it.
The Flyers still have a lot of hard-skating and furious checkers. It was the line of Tyson Foerster, Noah Cates, and Bobby Brink’s whole M.O., and what made them the team’s most consistent group for much of last season.
But they also have a bit more talent that can get more creative with the puck coming in. Matvei Michkov is entering his second season after leading last year’s rookie scoring race, Trevor Zegras came in from Anaheim with plenty of offensive upside still to his game, and someone like Owen Tippett, if he can get back to being consistent, could be a borderline 30-goal scorer with his laser of a shot (on either hand).
So getting used to controlling the puck more will be a key for the Flyers as October nears. But just as much, Tocchet was sure to stress, is what they do when they don’t have it.
“The one thing that, for me, that I’ll never change is play without the puck,” Tocchet said. “We want the goalie to play half the net, you know? We want to make sure that players know if we gotta give something up, where the puck’s gonna be. That’s really important to me.”
And will help to take some stress off goaltenders Sam Ersson and Dan Vladar in the months ahead if the Flyers can execute on that consistently.
“You got a goalie playing post to post, there’s a lot of slot shots, there’s backdoor plays…You’re gambling, right?” Tocchet said. “I don’t wanna gamble. I wanna be calculated in the way we play.
“But obviously, we got some creative guys, you know? When we have the puck, like I say, ‘Go have a party, man. Do what you gotta do.’ But when you don’t have the puck, I expect guys to know what they’re doing. I think that’s a big thing for me, going into this year.”
But it’ll take time. It’s only the first day.
Captain cooperation
Another notable difference in camp this year relates to Sean Couturier.
The Flyers’ captain didn’t have a great relationship with Tortorella, and was pretty direct about that at the end of last season. Their personalities clashed, and so did their views of how Couturier should play.
Now, Tocchet hasn’t been around as head coach for long, but already, the back and forth seems a lot more open and fluid.
“Already had some really good conversations with him,” Couturier said. “Probably more over the last three months than I had over two years with Torts, so it’s fun to just go back and forth and get to know each other, listen to each other’s thoughts on the game. I think we’re just trying to push in the same direction. Our goal is the same, and, you know, there’s no ego.
“He’s told me, ‘It’s not about Rick Tocchet.’ I’m kind of the same way. It’s not about me. So we’re all about what’s best for the team, and trying to get this team to the next level.”
Couturier is also entering the season as maybe the healthiest he’s been in years after a lengthy run of back issues from several seasons ago.
He’s known for being a strong defensive center, and before his back problems started to pile up, he was a Selke-winning level skater.
Maybe he can recapture some of that form a bit, along with some offensive production as he skated in between skilled Russian wingers Michkov and Nikita Grebenkin in the initial camp lines.
For now, Tocchet wants him to prioritize that.
“I want him to worry about his game,” Tocchet said of Couturier. “The leadership, it’ll come. I’ll help him out on that. I want him to worry about his game. So we’ll talk about that sort of stuff. He’s already done it. There’s been a couple of times where he’s come up to me, asked me about, ‘Hey, can we do this? Can we do that?’ That’s the relationship I wanna have.
“But I want him to worry about his game. Sometimes you put so much pressure on a captain that he’s gotta worry about everything. Next thing you know, his game suffers from it.”
He doesn’t want that for Couturier.
SIGN UP HERE to receive the PhillyVoice Sports newsletter
Follow Nick on Twitter: @itssnick
Follow Nick on Bluesky: @itssnick
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
