Former Flyers that would have excelled under John Tortorella

It’s no surprise that we are enamored with the fact that the Philadelphia Flyers are seemingly playing good hockey that is just missing that top-end talent edge to get them over the top. The foundation has been there throughout this entire season and while some returning players like Sean Couturier have made such a massive impact on this team, and young players taking a gigantic step in development like Joel Farabee has, a lot of the reason why the Flyers are finding success are the people behind the bench.

John Tortorella and his right-hand man in Brad Shaw has transformed this team and made it in their image. Defensively responsible while providing enough grit and power to score some flashy goals with skilled skating — the Flyers can appear to be on top of the hockey world some nights. It feels like a miracle, but it’s happening right before our eyes.

With this strong duo of coaching prowess, it takes us back to a time where the Flyers didn’t have this type of coaching for them. Players getting fumbled and talent being lost — “what if” becomes a standard phrase for any modern era of the Flyers and it brings us here, thinking about players and remembering some guys who we think, would have excelled with this coaching staff.

Before we get into just listing players and naming guys, we have to come up with some guidelines and rules, so that no one can yell at us:

• They couldn’t have found success in Philadelphia before. Of course, a prime Wayne Simmonds would have absolutely been very good for a Tortorella-led team. That is no question. But we’re not here to state the obvious, they had to have had a mediocre time with the Flyers to make it make sense.
• We have to keep it in the modern era, so let’s say after the 2010 Stanley Cup Final (for no particular reason). Again, Eric Lindros or John LeClair or Bill Barber magically spend their time being coached like this current team is? Pure domination. No point!

With that housekeeping out of the way, let’s look at the players we think would just blossom into some stellar on-ice contributors with this coaching staff.