November 30, 2023

John Tortorella wants the Flyers to be aggressive now so they'll be ready for the future

Offensively, John Tortorella wants the Flyers to be aggressive and take risks, so that a couple of years from now, when top prospects like Cutter Gauthier and Matvei Michkov do finally get here, they hit the ground running.

By Nick Tricome
PhillyVoice Staff

Defensively, head coach John Tortorella has spent the past year hammering home the fundamentals for the Flyers.

But offensively? Go for it, be aggressive, take risks, so that in 2-3 years, when Cutter Gauthier is here, when Matvei Michkov finally arrives, and when the Flyers are, hopefully, ready to take swings on bigger free agents, the figurative foot is already on the gas and everything can hit the ground running.

"No matter the score, no matter if we score first, they score, we're trying to play a much more aggressive style, and with risk in it to create offense," Tortorella said from the team's training facility in Voorhees on Thursday prior to their game against the New Jersey Devils. "I do think, although we have struggled here of late, I do think in the first quarter of the season, that has been one of the biggest improvements of our team, is transition offense, is stretching and making long passes, leaving the zone early, all the things we've talked about through the first quarter, we're staying with that.

"And, you know, sometimes in my mind, you get to the future, you start moving away a couple of years from now, when the 'Mad Russian' [Michkov] comes over here, and you start bringing in maybe some free agents when the time's right with some more offensive skill, I want that to fall into place when they come in.

"I want to stay with this style. Does that hurt our style when we're down? I don't think so. It's a really hard question to answer. We're just gonna go play and see where it all goes."

Lately, the approach has stagnated. The Flyers were left chasing the lightning-fast Rangers all game in a 3-1 loss on Black Friday, had to turn around quickly and reset defensively on Saturday to grind out a 1-0 shootout win against the Islanders, then came back home to play the Hurricanes on Tuesday but fell mostly flat in a 4-1 defeat.

Against generally more talented rosters, and clubs with immediately clear playoff or Stanley Cup aspirations, it was a bit of a wall crashed into for a group who, a quarter of the way through the season, had otherwise played surprisingly solid hockey, solid enough to even have them holding third place within a jumbled Metro division entering Tuesday night.

It hasn't just looked the part when watching either, the offense the Flyers had so far been generating in transition has reflected incredibly well statistically, as Sportslogiq's Mike Kelly highlighted ahead of the Hurricanes games:

The Flyers pressure the puck with purpose in the DZ & NZ. Their D activate often to join the rush. Through 21 games last season, PHI ranked near the bottom of the league producing rush chances & goals & had the 2nd worst rush goal differential. Top 10 in all 3 areas this season. pic.twitter.com/p1Q12FyspF
— Mike Kelly (@MikeKellyNHL) November 28, 2023

But with the Flyers as an organization in a clearly-stated rebuild, any successes now are ultimately only signs of progress toward what they want to be a much better future, and the inevitable struggles marks of just how far they still have to go.

Because they still do have a ways to go, and their best players aren't even in the building yet.

But Michkov's tearing it up over in Russia, Gauthier's killing it at Boston College, and until they finally get here, Tortorella will keep pushing the Flyers of today to take their shots – like how Tyson Foerster did when he sprang Travis Konecny perfectly on a breakaway Tuesday night – with whatever victories or setbacks come along with them.