Photo Credit: NHL.com
John Tortorella became the 23rd Head Coach in Flyers history last week. He gave an enthusiastic fiery presser, one in which he divulged a bit of his system, as he wants to improve the play away from the puck, “Bottom line, I want the team to be harder. I think we need to present ourselves, look harder, coming off the bus, coming into buildings. I want other teams to say you know what we’ve got our hands full tonight.”
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Tortorella wants to improve the play away from the puck. He is right, that definitely has to improve in all facets of the game. When the Flyers dump a puck in their zone, more often than not they would send one player in to win a puck battle along the boards. The Forwards don’t support the defensemen, there was little puck support, to which it made the Flyers look like a disorganized mess, “We’re going at it and the speed of it whatever happens with it,” Tortorella said. “What I’m telling you is I am just going at it as quickly as I can to try to make us the best we can be, especially away from the puck when we first start the season.”
He continued, “I think I’ve kind of come full circle here, players need to express themselves. You need structure. I think one of the most important attributes of a head coach is to find and teach the structure away from the puck. I work at that. I kind of get coined as that defensive guy. You can coin me anyway you want; you can say what you want about me. That is a huge part of winning. As you see in the payoffs right now, as you listen to some of the players talking about it in the playoffs right now. It’s a huge part of being who you want to be and I think it really develops a standard of being a hard team to play against.”
“On the other side of that, I think you have to get out of the way,” Tortorella exclaimed. “I do think we over coach at times. It’s something I try to check myself daily as I’m dealing with the players, especially in the offensive part of the game. I don’t have the ability or the sight that offensive people have or the creativity that they have. I need to allow them to play, but it’s going to be a two-way street. It needs to be a two-way street, just show me that you’re willing to give us something away from the puck. Not going to turn you into a checker, but you got to show me and more importantly show your teammates that you’re willing to do some of the other stuff as an offensive guy away from the puck. Then you have something and I think that’s what develops the right camaraderie of a hockey club. It develops the right attitude of a hockey club and how hard you have to be. I think it starts with your top guys. It’s kind of a give and take there. It’s a teaching process as we go through and I am looking forward, already made some calls today, to having some meetings next week with some of the guys, to start this teaching of a standard and the mentality of what we’re going to be. It’ll be a conversation. It going to be a back-and-forth conversation because I want to learn about them as they will learn about me.”
Its refreshing to hear a coach talk about the play away from the puck. It’s just as important as having the puck, as it is difficult to have puck possession without the play away from the puck. Maybe the Flyers will have the puck more often than not now because of such.
“I think it’s the evolution of coach. We’ve talked, Mike Sullivan and I have talked a lot about this question, this subject you’re talking about,” Tortorella said. “It needs to be a two-way street. It needs to be. I think coaches get tunnel vision sometimes. Listen, I’m one of them. That’s where we have to check ourselves a little bit. Even though, you want to maybe jump in on a conversation, maybe just stop for a couple minutes and continue to listen. I do think the young athlete, it’s a different athlete right now. That’s a huge part of a coaches’ responsibility is to work with the different athletes as you go through. As long as I’ve been in the league, I’ve seen you go up and down different avenues of what the different athletes are. We have to make that adjustment. Having said that, there is a fine line there. You can’t allow it to run amuck. That when you get into problems and you lose that standard, you lose that team concept of the merit of playing in the National Hockey League, of becoming a pro. That’s basically what we’re talking about here, is going through these conversations, going through these teaching situations, and developing a pro.”
Tortorella continued, “As I told Chuck in conversations I had with him, I don’t know what I enjoy most, trying to develop the hockey player or trying to develop the person because it’s pretty cool. I’m developing a person in a locker room. My daughter is a schoolteacher, she developing young kids in the classroom. My son is in the army, he’s a leader of men. He’s developing people there. It’s all the same thing, trying to develop the people. We have to make changes as coaches as athletes are different. I’m looking forward to listening. It was something I was little bit stubborn back in the day, but I think I’ve learned. I’ve learned watching other coaches and I’ve just through seeing the progression of what the athlete is.”
It appears to be a changing of the guard, and it has some fans excited for the future. Things will be interesting this season, so let’s see how this pans out. One thing is for certain, Tortorella definitely said the right things in his first press conference as Head Coach at the Philadelphia Flyers.
Maybe they ought to get rid of fletch if they want to be harder. The guy looks and talks like a wimp. He sure gets beaten up in trades.