Photo Credit: AP Photo/Matt Slocum
E144 – Are The Flyers Harder To Play Against?
Since the Flyers lost in the playoffs under former coach Alain Vigneault, it seems that the team lost it’s identity. Whether the team has been good or mediocre, it always had a some form of an identity or a driving force behind it’s effort. However, it’s felt oddly absent over the past few years. And without key players in the lineup that identity started to dwindle away until the only thing holding the personality of the team was Claude Giroux. However, now as the John Tortorella era has begun, the intensity and his personality has started to get ahold of the team.
The Flyers have become a scrappy, relentless group that clearly represents the leaders of the team. From the coach’s history of fighting with the media, other coaches, or even opposing players, Tortorella’s intensity has definitely funneled it’s way through members of the leadership group. The most notable of the group is Scott Laughton. Not only has Laughton been the only player to wear a letter on his jersey this season, but he also managed to stick out of the leadership core while three very important veterans became unavailable to the team for the foreseeable future. Laughton didn’t just live up to the pressure of leading a group of men through a tough time, but he actually has taken his game to new levels. Not only is he carrying the team emotionally on a regular basis, but he’s been on pace for a breakout season in his late twenties. Through that leadership the Flyers core has become a relentless group that plays to its competition. While the team still lacks some talent in key areas of the lineup, it does show that when the pieces come together, there is a respectable and determined hockey club.
On this episode of Gettin Gritty Wit It, Yariv and Vasili discusses the current identify of the team as they slowly crawl their way up the standings. While there is still plenty of work to do, it does show that a lot of the young pieces necessary to turn the team around are in place. Whether Chuck Fletcher is going to speed up that progression is up to him. He can either move methodically and get this team moving in the right direction over the next few years, or he could be destined to repeat history and end up empty handed for his efforts.
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Why have Hayes in the picture when the article is about leadership?