There’s no question that for the Flyers to be able to take the next step in their rebuild — and actually make it stick — there’s a lot that needs to improve in their on-ice product, and their power play is close to the top of the list. That power play — the third worst in the league last season, converting at a 14.5 percent rate, and which was somehow still an improvement from the season before when all they could manage was a 12.2 percent efficiency rate — has long been a sore spot for the team, but increasingly over the last season moved into the space of something that defied logic in its construction and decision processing, but the Flyers are hoping that, with a whole new coaching staff at the helm this season, they can begin to chance things.
It’s going to take a strong collective effort, to be sure, but one key to unlocking a more effective power play, they’re coming to suggest, is working Cam York into the unit at the top (something the Tortorella-run Flyers categorically refused to do, last season). Introductions are still getting underway with Tocchet and his staff and their new set of roster players, but he seems already to understand what he has in front of him with York.
“I’m not gonna change his personality,” Tocchet acknowledged to media at practice on Friday, “I just want him to understand that we need him as a leader on the team back there, and I think he’s just gotta be aggressive back there and… I really liked his blue line, his offense up on the blue line. I think there’s something there, I saw it at the World Juniors, I think he ran the power play at the top. Is there a spot where maybe he could play the top on the power play? Maybe. Because I want to see that.”
The Flyers’ refusal to use York on the power play, even as it reached terrible lows last season, was particularly head scratching when laid against the context of him having success running a power play at every level before this — Tocchet alluded to him quarterbacking the US’s power play on that gold medal winning World Junior team, but he found a lot of success doing it with the National Team Development Program, at one of the top programs in college hockey at the University of Michigan, and right from the jump in his graduation to professional hockey with the Phantoms. York’s skillset, in his since-refined shot, his crisp and decisive playmaking ability, and his smooth skating at the blue line, make him (at least on paper) well-suited to the role of running a power play at the top level as well, and the nod also feels a just reward for the work he’s put in to round out his game at even strength, to boot.
As for the Flyers’ vision for their new power play, that’s still coming into focus, but that focus is shifting towards and approach which is at once smarter in its areas of emphasis, but mindful of walking the line between setting expectations and boxing their most skilled players in with them.
“We’re not about plays, we’re about concepts,” Tocchet went on, “and I think when you have guys like Konecny, and Michkov, and Foerster could be a good power play [guy]… You gotta be careful, you don’t want to make these guys robotic, you know, sometimes power plays are robotic. It’s like… if the PK does this, your concept is, what is your concept from that. I don’t want to bore you guys and go too far but I think we gotta let these guys be carefree, but there’s also concepts. You beat pressure, we have to attack the interior, and I didn’t see that much last year. You gotta be able to take those shots from the middle of the point to open up power plays, you gotta take that shot too, so we gotta make sure that whoever’s up there is gonna bomb away if that’s what the team’s gonna give us. Whatever the team gives you, and it’s a Grade-A, you take it. We’re not looking for tick-tack-toes — if they’re there, take it, but I think to me, being aggressive, taking… the best power plays are the ones that break pressure and attack, so that’s what we’re gonna do.”
The Flyers, all told, intend to attack the problem which is their power play from a number of angles, both from polishing out their process into something that plays a little more focused and a little less forced, while also raising their floor by changing their personnel and adding a bit more raw skill into their mix, and York fits that bill for them.
This all comes with an understanding that York, for all of his potential, could use a bit of a reset from how things deteriorated under his last coaching staff, as well as a patience to let him be what he is and do what he does, to get where he needs to be. If there’s been a lingering feeling that York has been playing, of late, at a level short of his full potential, this move to get him into the mix on the power play could well help him draw nearer to it again.
