John Tortorella was was supposed to bring a new culture with accountability. Did that happen?
Along with the NHL season coming to a close, most beer leagues in the area are wrapping up this month, and this season was one of my proudest.
Over the past year or so, I’ve gotten a number of friends into hockey for the first time. Predictably, we were a mess at the beginning. Guys were learning how to skate, much less play hockey. But we played hard, communicated well, and built a supportive and competitive environment. By the end of the season, we’d won a few games and were pretty competitive most nights.
Naturally, we got a tough draw in the playoffs against a pretty loaded team – one with a roster of guys that didn’t pass or skate without the puck and, more remarkably, turned most games into a sideshow with their infighting. So when we tied our game late in the first period, it was almost like a sports movie came to life.
“Almost” because we ended up getting stomped. We just didn’t have the talent. Our hustle and culture and accountability couldn’t make up for that.
As the Flyers wrap up this season, it’s worth remembering one of the talking points from a year ago. Just Google or Bing or Ask Jeeves “John Tortorella Culture” or “John Tortorella Accountability.” The coverage of the coaching hire focused more on emotional growth than on-ice improvement.
So, did it work?
Well, Rocky Thompson said it looked like “some guys don’t even care” last week and Tony DeAngelo sat the last few games for, well, actually, no one really knows, but it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with performance.
This type of discourse has persisted all year. Despite lineup changes and benchings, Kevin Hayes never showed interest in Carter Hart’s side of the red line. Even though he sat in the press box with his family in the crowd, Travis Sanheim never brought the intensity Tortorella demanded. While Cam York has played a steadier game, he, too, continues to get critiqued for his lack of aggressiveness. On the flip side, Tortortella lauded DeAngelo’s approach to the game as recently as a couple weeks ago, seemingly holding it as a standard for the culture of competitiveness he wants to create. This is despite the fact DeAngelo had bled chances against all year and now is being punished, some may say characteristically, for what seems like a non-hockey reason. Is this the culture the organization wanted to create?
This isn’t to pile on Tortorella. While it wasn’t the bill of goods he and the team sold prior to the season, he did an excellent job nurturing the growth of this team’s younger players, with real progress from York, Owen Tippett, Morgan Frost, and Travis Konecny. He got reasonable output from this roster.
But if this much disciplinary action was required consistently over the course of an entire season, was the culture different? Did he bring accountability when the lineup’s problem children maintained the same mentalities despite regular criticism and punishment?
The discourse surrounding Tortorella has less to do with the coach and more to do with the sport. It’s probably not a coincidence good teams seem to have good cultures and disappointing ones have bad cultures. Not even 10 years ago, the Lightning were considered soft, Steven Stamkos hated Jon Cooper, and they were a bunch of losers. Then they won a few Cups and now they’re the modern-day standard for a grizzled champion.
No one in hockey wants to talk about how good they are, so we talk about how tough, or hard-working, or resilient teams can be. The stuff they can control. But it’s the talent they were blessed with that makes any of that success possible.
In an alternate world, if Hayes had the talent of Nikita Kucherov we probably wouldn’t care about his backchecking. Or if Sanheim played to his standard and the team was winning, we’d credit Nick Seeler for the toughness he brings and how hard the Flyers are to play against while glossing over how Sanheim’s ability helps them win games. Needless to say, neither Sanheim nor Hayes would be missing shifts if they were better players. The reason we care about their mentalities – and, by proxy, culture and accountability – is because increased effort feels more attainable than a great roster. In reality, this is probably just who Hayes and Sanheim have always been and we just expected them to be better. It’s not their mentality, it’s just their ability.
No coach or general manager has ever had a bad strategy. The players just needed to execute better. No player ever lacked ability. They just needed to play harder. No one ever needs to be replaced. These guys should be able to work harder and fix it.
Fixing the culture or adding accountability isn’t a plan. Like a real, tangible plan. This is avoiding the hard truth that the team probably isn’t any good.
This isn’t specific to Tortorella or Chuck Fletcher. This is just cliché in this sport. But effort or culture are not going to create a winning team. Those will be the characteristics retrofitted on a great team to explain how they finished the job.
When the Flyers disappointed coming out of the lockout, Fletcher’s regime sold it as a crisis of culture. It wasn’t a coincidence that the organization and Tortorella used that as a frequent talking point leading into the season. This season showed that wasn’t the problem. The guy heralded as the one with the answer to that problem made no difference. In reality, much like my beer league team, this organization’s shortcomings had less to do with accountability and more to do with a lack of talent.
