Seven games into the Philadelphia Flyers’ 2024-25 season and beyond the arrival of Matvei Michkov and the surprise rookie appearance of Jett Luchanko, this team still has earned a 1-5-1 record. It is a stark contrast from how they started last season, and even worse, they look like garbage in most of these losses.
Maybe the most frustrating part about the Flyers this season is the fact that head coach John Tortorella is changing up the lineup just so often. It feels (and it might be the reality) that this team has entered each of their seven games with a completely new combination of forward lines, and in the middle of the game it gets even more scrambled. It has become a real, true talking point at the start of this season and many people are directing their dissatisfaction about this Flyers season at this aspect of the games.
So much so that Tortorella himself has had to answer exactly why he does this so often and he explained himself fairly well on Friday morning.
“With line combinations, it’s not like I’m a mad scientist back there just throwing things around. New line combinations happen quite a bit after power plays, after the penalty kill — take you a couple rotations to get them back,” Tortorella said. “Especially when we’re in the situation right now, we’re struggling offensively, if I try something different after a power play or after a penalty kill, and I see something there, I say ‘Maybe I’ll stay with that’.
“I wish I could just roll with it. But when you’re struggling offensively and see something might work in a game, after a certain situation, I’m going to stick with it. So, you have to change the other things, too. There are all sorts of situations that come in there. Don’t misconstrue that I’m back there, just throwing people all over the place — any decisions I make with the lines, I’m hoping to help the team. And when a team is struggling offensively, I think I need to.
“If I didn’t, you would probably say ‘Why the Hell isn’t he changing his lines around?’ There’s a chicken and the egg, I guess. But I go by feel. And I’ve hung in there with Tippett and Michkov quite a bit and I just don’t see it working. It’s a long-winded answer, but I don’t have an answer. I just watch it, and I adjust what I need to help the team.”
Essentially, it all boils down to Tortorella reacting in the middle of the game and adjusting player’s ice-time to work with the special-team units, to not exhaust the players on said units. And the Flyers struggling so much at scoring goals that he is trying to tinker with combinations in between games (and in the middle of them) to try and find some chemistry that can lead them to putting the puck in the back of the net.
And the Flyers head coach does have a point. He has stuck with the duo of Owen Tippett and Matvei Michkov — and it just simply has not worked. In the 36 minutes of 5-on-5 action that those two have been on the ice together, they have been outshot 19-to-27, earned just 43.53% of the shot attempts, and have been scored on twice while they have not scored a goal. And it gets even worse when you look at the scoring chance quality — the Flyers have taken just three high-danger attempts with that duo together, but has allowed 11. Like Tortorella said, that is just not working.
It is frustrating, though. It feels like these players are given hardly any chance to truly establish anything or show anything to Tortorella that makes him confident that they can work together. Maybe all it will take is the lucky bounces going in the Flyers’ favor for there to be some continued consistency. And, it would help when the Jett Luchanko question is done and he is sent back to the OHL, so the season can truly feel like it has started and this roster is more set in stone.
We shall see. The Flyers have another opportunity to debut a new forward lineup on Saturday afternoon against the Minnesota Wild.
