The Flyers have not only entered the season with the fifth-youngest roster in the NHL, they have also relegated the majority of the team’s older players to depth roles. Players like Nic Deslauriers and Erik Johnson won’t factor in much if the team’s health holds up, and that would leave 33-year-old Garnet Hathaway as the oldest “regular” player in the lineup.
This team will sink or swim with young talent; even the goaltending corps is headed up by a 25-year-old, there really is no other option than to give young, and in some cases unproven, players more opportunities to breakout. The youth infusion was always coming, and for that reason there was some apprehension about John Tortorella being chosen as the one to lead the next generation.
Tortorella’s method of preaching discipline, and his emphasis on attention to detail and execution on every shift, leads most to believe that he would love nothing more than a group of reliable vets, 18 foot soldiers to do his bidding and forecheck for 60 minutes straight. But this is a mischaracterization of Tortorella’s history and what, and who, made his most successful teams work.
Success fueled by youth
John Tortorella has been named NHL Coach of the Year twice, once in 2003-04, when he won his only Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning, and then again in 2016-17, when he led the upstart Columbus Blue Jackets to a 108 point season and a surprise playoff birth.
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