The Philadelphia Flyers sure like to keep it interesting. While across state lines, visiting the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night, they scratched and clawed to force overtime via a Tyson Foerster goal with the net empty and a 6-on-4 situation created; and then eventually earned the loser point after the Devils claimed the win.
Unfortunately, it didn’t need to be that hard. Philadelphia played the majority of the game with just 10 forwards. Garnet Hathaway was ejected from the game after launching rookie Luke Hughes into the boards and the officials deemed it a dangerous hit. Rightfully, head coach John Tortorella was pissed and doesn’t think it even was a penalty to begin with.
“It was a clean hit,” he said after the game. “When we killed the five-minute penalty, which never should have been a five-minute penalty, which never should have been a penalty, we talked about that’s the hump we’ve got to get over.”
So, Hathaway was gone just minutes into the game, but Tortorella saw an issue with young winger Joel Farabee even earlier in that game and the 23-year-old played a total of 56 seconds for the entirety of the match.
This punishment laid upon Farabee appears to have been for him mistakenly committing too hard in the offensive zone and not being there for the backcheck on the Devils’ first goal, immediately putting the Flyers on the back foot, and Tortorella blamed him for it.
After the game, Tortorella said the benching was because Farabee “didn’t listen.”
And the coach was adament to not go further into any explanation as to why he kept Farabee on the bench, despite being already down a forward.
“None of your business,” he said. “You know I’m not going to go there. You want me to keep answering questions here, don’t bring me into that spot.”
Well, that certainly doesn’t close any doors.
Farabee came into this season with something to prove. To prove that he belonged as part of the Flyers’ future plans and he is starting to answer the ultimate question a little more clearly. He currently has eight goals and 15 points through 23 games while averaging his fewest minutes since his rookie year.
