John Tortorella is a no non-sense coach, and he commands the most from his players. He doesn’t always expect perfection, Torts just wants 100% effort.
Over the course of the past few weeks, with the Flyers being out of the Playoffs. Various Associate Coaches (Brad Shaw and Rocky Thompson) have taken part behind the bench as the bench boss. Unfortunately, there have been some players that aren’t giving full effort, and it appears that they have checked out.
These players have been called out by Rocky Thompson, Travis Konecny, and John Tortorella alike. Tortorella has been watching from afar at times, and he has preached that he wants to give the guys a different voice. This makes sense since it is a teaching season, he wants to indeed make sure that these players are indeed checked out and not just checked out to him. These players will not be on the team next season, and this just adds to the laundry list of changes that will ensue this offseason for the orange and black.
“I can imagine it’s frustrating for Coots. Seeing how hard he trained, what he was doing to get back into the lineup is definitely what guys should be following because if everyone wanted to play that bad we would have a good thing going on here,” Travis Konecny said a week ago.
“I want athletes that way (Like Couturier). One of the problems going on with our group, we don’t have enough athletes like him (Sean Couturier),” John Tortorella exclaimed last weekend.
Even when a team is out of the playoffs there are still many things to play for, and pride is one of them. Some of these players are very lucky to even be playing the sport they love and crave, nothing should be taken for granted. Unfortunately, that is not the case with some of the players who are playing for the orange and black apparently.
“I just told them it’s not about X’s and O’s, I said quite frankly it looks like some guys don’t even care,” Flyers Associate Coach Rocky Thompson said following the game on Tuesday against the St. Louis Blues. “They’re just not trying. I wasn’t going to call anybody out individually, but your teammates know. I told them I’d give them another chance.”
Rocky Thompson continues, “If you’re going to do it, I’ll keep you in, if not I’ll take you out.” This is a big problem, and it may have been going on for years. For the past few seasons, unfortunately the Flyers have been bottom feeders. Maybe this is directed at some Vets, as the youth appear to be flourishing right now.
It’s easy to speculate who it may be, but that’s not the way people should operate. Next week are exit interviews following the conclusion of the season. I will get to the bottom of this and garner some answers. There is no doubt in my mind that Tortorella already knows who will stay and who will go in the offseason.
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“I was upstairs with Danny. Danny and I, again like St. Louis, we spent time talking about how we are going to go about our business after the season, looking and talking about personnel,” Tortorella said before the game against the Dallas Stars.
These next few games are important for those players that want to stick around with the orange and black.
