Date Published: 10-18-2022
Photo Credit: NHL.com
John Tortorella sat at the podium yesterday while the media fired away with questions. One of those questions, not in so many words was, why was Scott Laughton the only player wearing a letter:
“I don’t think anyone else deserves it. It was an easy choice for me.” – John Tortorella
Tortorella then elaborated if he would name a Captain this season off a question from Sam Carchidi of Philly Hockey Now, “Probably not,” Torts said.
Torts knows how to get the most out of his players, and they have to prove/earn letters, nothing is handed to anyone for good reason. He knows how to fuel his team to get them motivated, so this is one way to do it.
This should fuel your team, and get them to play that much harder. No he’s not a dinosaur coach, this is about accountability. A leader(s) shall emerge, and until that time just because there’s letters in this league it does not mean it has to be given out.
The Flyers hired a former Stanley Cup winning Head Coach John Tortorella to a four year deal, worth $16 million, to instill accountability in the locker room. Some forget he won a Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning back in the 2003-04 season.
Tortorella is known to be a hard-nosed coach, who commands the most from his players. He is not afraid of benching or calling out star studded players either. This was one reason why the majority of the Flyers team reported early for training camp. They knew it was going to be grueling, they know it’s going to be a very “Difficult Camp” as John Tortorella said earlier in the offseason:
“It’s going to be a very difficult camp. High volume skating. They will be told about this during the summer. We’re attacking it. We’re attacking it.” – John Tortorella
The Flyers have been bottom feeders in the league for the past two years, so something had to change. One had to believe that a no non-sense coach was in the cards in the distant future. This current Flyers team needed a sense of direction and guidance, as they really had an embarrassing campaign in 2021-22 of historic proportions in a bad way, so welcome to Camp “Tortsture” where suicide skates were a daily thing, even the goalies participated in suicide skates.
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