Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet might not be envious of the Phillies current won/loss record so far this season. But he used a baseball analogy on Sunday after practice to describe how Philadelphia needs to start Game 2 Monday night against the host Hurricanes.
“I just said we just got to hit singles every shift, you can’t try to hit home runs,” the coach said. “I just felt a lot of guys were all in on a home run or not skating. So we’ve learned from it, we’re moving on from it.”
After watching the video from Game 1, Tocchet said he said there was a brief stage in the game where the Flyers stacked together three or four quality shifts in terms of forechecking. But it clearly was the exception to what was sadly the norm for Philadelphia’s poor performance and effort.
“To me it was the first 15 minutes where we, just watching the video, it didn’t look like a lot of the guys wanted the puck,” he said. “And against Carolina, you want to want the puck, you want confrontation, you got to want to make that play. And those are the things that we didn’t do early on. There were some pockets later, but at that point it’s got to be more consistent.”
Tocchet clearly wasn’t pleased with the opening 30 minutes of the game, with the Flyers essentially a vast majority of puck battles, and being outworked against a team who were eager to seemingly skate circles around their opponents. He said that needs to change right off the bat tomorrow night if Philadelphia has a chance to return to Philadelphia on Thursday with the series tied at a game apiece.
“When you have the puck, skate with it,” he said. “I mean on the goals, the two guys that had the puck, if you skate with it and make a play instead of making a quick play and it hits a skate, those are the plays where you have to skate. So how do you get better at it? Want the puck and skate with it, and skate to options. There’s a time and place where you can’t skate, and you got to battle through it and you got to get it out.”
Meeting pressure with pressure
Aside from the costly turnovers, the Flyers rarely tilted the ice in their favor. Only five players had a Corsi For percentage at or over 50 per cent: Jamie Drysdale, Travis Sanheim, Trevor Zegras, Christian Dvorak, and Sean Couturier. Tocchet pointed to the fact so many players didn’t make the necessary plays to counteract Carolina’s forecheck and pressure.
“It’s a team that’s going to press, they’re going to get at you,” he said. “I’m a big believer in meeting pressure with pressure. So wherever that pressure is go find it. We were going away from it. That’s something that we have to learn from. There’s play where if we want to the area that we should have gone to, we either would’ve had puck possession, or some kind of rush play. We were somehow playing on the outside, and that helps Carolina even more.
“Is it a mindset, is it inexperience, is it the quick turnaround? I don’t know, it could be a bunch of those things. But we don’t have time. You can’t put together three or four games like that, you need to figure it out quickly. Tomorrow night we want 22 guys or 21 guys wanting the puck. That’s the mindset.”
Paying the price to find the “hard ice”
The coach added there were “about four or five guys that got to be dogs on the bone” from the start of Game 2, but again, didn’t name names. He also said winger Owen Tippett was missed being the team’s best “speed demon” but could say for sure he’d be in the lineup for Game 2 with his day-to-day injury. What Tocchet and his coaching staff are looking for tomorrow night are players carrying the puck and taking it to the dirty areas or “hard ice.” It’s an area the Flyers didn’t really drive towards in Game 1 and has to change for Game 2 if Philadelphia wants to get in Carolina goaltender Frederik Andersen’s wheelhouse.
“I’m a big believer, and yesterday was a perfect example, in finding the hard ice,” he said. “The easy ice is taking it back and play outside, of course. But if you want the hard ice it’s inside. You might get hit, but somebody might hook you, they might hold you, somebody might drag you down. I’m a big believer in hard ice, especially in the playoffs. The first half of the game we were more on the easy side of the ice.”
All stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick
