The Philadelphia Flyers have suffered three consecutive losses and have only claimed three of the available 12 points in the last six games. But for some reason, it doesn’t feel as bad as similar recent streaks have felt.
Simply put, the Flyers have been an exciting and young hockey team that do not quit through the majority of the game. Even in the toughest, multi-goal defeats, the Flyers are still fighting out for scoring chances and are in the game.
Head coach John Tortorella explained after Wednesday’s 5-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres that the process is there, it is just that the goals and end result is not happening.
“What we need to do is just stay with it,” Tortorella said. “And I think that’s the most important thing. To not overthink it, to just continue to play the right way, and I thought for a good portion of the game, we did. Checked well, jammed the neutral zone, had a ton of chances — give the [Sabres] goalie credit, he played a good game.”
Everyone can see it from the outside that this team is still on the correct trajectory but not finishing with the score in their favor. Unfortunately, from the inside it can be a little more frustrating.
Almost every young prospect coming into the NHL has only experienced team success. Throughout their entire experience of youth and minor hockey, they were probably the best player on their team. Then move to junior leagues or college and they are eyeing to be one of the best in that league with a focus on getting drafted. You get drafted and now are either experiencing professional hockey for the first time or go back to your junior league.
Just look at Tyson Foerster’s trajectory. Scoring piles of points in Triple-A before getting drafted by his hometown Barrie Colts. In just his second year in the OHL, he has almost double the amount of points as the next-best player on his own team. The team might not have been successful, but he was certainly earning individual attention and success. And then he turns professional, heading to the AHL early because of COVID and produces extremely well there. The Phantoms are never really a bad team while he was there ever so briefly. When it really mattered, he hasn’t experienced a whole lot of team-wide losses, or a streak like the Flyers are currently on right now.
So now it is up to the Flyers’ coaching staff to manage the young players that might not be acclimatized to not winning the majority of their hockey games.
“It’s a big part of my job right now — how the mindset of the hockey team is handled” Tortorella said when asked about keeping young players not frustrated. “You don’t like losing, you don’t like being in the loss column. I’ve got to handle it the right way with them. We have some things to correct and we’ll do that, but I’m not going to go searching for things wrong with the team when we lose 5-2. That’ll show up plenty of times this year, when something is really wrong with the team. Sometimes when you think you’re doing okay you just have to keep going with it, and that’s a big part of my responsibility right now with some of the players, because I think there’s frustration already.”
It’s not good that players are frustrated, but it could be seen as them knowing that they played the right way and didn’t have the finishing touch to earn the two points.
Right now, though, from the outside we would much prefer it to be all about process and the results coming (much) later. Establishing a foundation of good, solid play with a roster full of young talent is certainly preferable to watching them ride some insane shooting or save percentage into some undeserved wins. To be able to then reward that base of structure with some high-end talent later, to then just bounce into some deserved results, is the way to go.
It’s all about the future and Tortorella is doing his part in molding the mindset.
