Flyers Now 11th in Points % in East; Tortorella Still an Infallible Genius?

[Winston Wolf]

So many people gave Tortorella all of the credit for the Flyers' year, but it turns out the drivers look like a healthy Couturier, improved goaltending, and actual depth on defense. Those three things were the big differences from last season throughout much of the year, now all three things are gone again and the Flyers are as bad as they've looked in years.

Is Tortorella still winning the Jack Adams this year? Are we allowed to question him yet or is it still too soon?

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[ryan callahan]

Philly could lose all their last 4 games and still have overachieved by far their expectations. Torts did great with a depleted roster.

 

[tp71]

Losing Hart was their issue.

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

Losing Hart was their issue.

Benching their new captain wasn't very smart either. Seems to have lost the room.

 

[NyQuil]

Goaltending highs and woes seem to be the consistent factor across the league.

 

[thedjpd]

Flyers fans looking to get sympathy on blaming Torts this season should probably stick to their own board. Torts has his issues but the downfall is pretty easy to see, and to think that he’s at the root is pretty ignorant.

The Flyers team simply isn’t the same team at all - purely from a roster perspective. Fans of the team want to criticize the lack of high end talent; this is true. But they are not devoid of it entirely either.

They had one of the strongest goaltending duos - playing a balanced workload and putting up good (not great, mind you) numbers until Hart’s arrest. They’ve had league worst goaltending by a long shot - 85% SV vs NYR as second worst (88%) over the last 3 weeks.

They lost 4 defensemen at or around the trade deadline (Walker traded, Drysdale, Seeler, Risto injured) for the last 4 weeks (only now have 2 returned), been forced to play rookies or oldies in their stead.

Couturier hurt or playing through something or whatever it is with him (this is a reasonable criticism of how it was handled, but not nearly as much as the previous two).

These have trickle down to the remaining roster players.

NJD lost 1 defenseman and had crap goaltending for the first part of the season and their entire year was shot. They are just now pulling out of it.

EDM needed historic and record setting level runs from the best player in the world to recover from their horrible goaltending slump in the beginning, but only has still done so because their goalies stabilized.

The funny thing is, the things Flyers fans wanted - Hart gone, Walker gone, is exactly what has happened and now we’re tooting our own horns that the team is struggling to blame the coach? The roster simply did get a lot weaker. In fact, they wanted more - Laughton, TK traded - and would still expect results?

If Hart isn’t arrested and Walker still around, I’d bet Flyers don’t drop much, but they should have never been here anyway by the paper GMs, so what exactly is the problem?

 

[Kiorei]

I don't understand the team. I thought they were rebuilding? Doesn't seem that way.

 

[thedjpd]

Goaltending highs and woes seem to be the consistent factor across the league.

100% this.

Micro decisions may affect things but nothing as much as this. It’s brought even elite teams down to scraping the bottom.

 

[Mike C]

Losing Hart was their issue.

You meant losing HEART

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

Losing Hart was their issue.

25th ranked offense
Worst PP in the league
Having the worst C group in the league
thinking that Staal and Johnson would help this team win games
scumbag #79 not being around anymore is far down on the list of reasons why they are folding under pressure down the stretch

 

[zizbuka]

Philly could lose all their last 4 games and still have overachieved by far their expectations. Torts did great with a depleted roster.

They only 'overachieved' because they're in a horrible division.

 

[Rich Nixon]

Philly could lose all their last 4 games and still have overachieved by far their expectations. Torts did great with a depleted roster.

(It's a better roster than last year, when they won 31 games. So the Big Miracle is what, turning a 31-win team into a 36-win team in an awful division?)

 

[sbhnur]

Unfortunately there's only frustration left at the end of the season because they cant get any results due to injuries while selling Walker at the deadline and really awful goaltending. With the current tandem you can hardly win any game at all. Bad break for Ersson, he could have a good rookie season with about 25-30 games to play and little pressure on him.

Little reminder: Flyers are still rebuilding and they have a lot of good draft pick the next 2 seasons. It's not the end of the world. Their goalie situation is a big concern though.

 

[thekernel]

Expectations are a funny thing. Tortorella can't lose in this situation: either he's overachieving, or he's exactly where expected. Maybe that's why he loves coaching these kinds of teams

 

[The Macho King]

Torts is great at making bad look mediocre. He did it for years in Columbus.

 

[JianYang]

Nobody ever said he is an infallible genius. C'mon now....

 

[Winston Wolf]

Flyers fans looking to get sympathy on blaming Torts this season should probably stick to their own board. Torts has his issues but the downfall is pretty easy to see, and to think that he’s at the root is pretty ignorant.

The Flyers team simply isn’t the same team at all - purely from a roster perspective. Fans of the team want to criticize the lack of high end talent; this is true. But they are not devoid of it entirely either.

They had one of the strongest goaltending duos - playing a balanced workload and putting up good (not great, mind you) numbers until Hart’s arrest. They’ve had league worst goaltending by a long shot - 85% SV vs NYR as second worst (88%) over the last 3 weeks.

They lost 4 defensemen at or around the trade deadline (Walker traded, Drysdale, Seeler, Risto injured) for the last 4 weeks (only now have 2 returned), been forced to play rookies or oldies in their stead.

Couturier hurt or playing through something or whatever it is with him (this is a reasonable criticism of how it was handled, but not nearly as much as the previous two).

These have trickle down to the remaining roster players.

NJD lost 1 defenseman and had crap goaltending for the first part of the season and their entire year was shot. They are just now pulling out of it.

EDM needed historic and record setting level runs from the best player in the world to recover from their horrible goaltending slump in the beginning, but only has still done so because their goalies stabilized.

The funny thing is, the things Flyers fans wanted - Hart gone, Walker gone, is exactly what has happened and now we’re tooting our own horns that the team is struggling to blame the coach? The roster simply did get a lot weaker. In fact, they wanted more - Laughton, TK traded - and would still expect results?

If Hart isn’t arrested and Walker still around, I’d bet Flyers don’t drop much, but they should have never been here anyway by the paper GMs, so what exactly is the problem?

I didn't even blame him. He's been given credit all season when clear improvements to the team that I and many others have outlined are the true reasons for the team's jump in the standings. Just a few weeks ago, many here were praising his virtue for "holding everyone accountable, no matter who it is" when benching Couturier (and many were even boasting about how great Tortorella was because the Flyers won one singular game with Couturier scratched.)

Now that his team has failed to get any points against Montreal, Chicago, Buffalo, or Columbus in the span of 9 days, there isn't a peep from his fans. The only rebuttal is that the Flyers shouldn't have been here in the first place and that we're being unreasonable and ungrateful.

Replacing Provorov with Walker (and opening space and ice time for Sanheim to thrive), Couturier's return, and improved goaltending are the reasons for the modest bump from last season. The Tortorella narrative around here is complete fantasy.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

It only took 2 years for players on his teams to tune him out. Just happened to take longer in NY, Vancouver and CBJ

 

[WarriorofTime]

Torts drives away any skilled offensive player from the team and the whole room eventually tunes him out. But some say it’s worth it for those couple of years of finishing dead middle.

 

[Zirakzigil]

Their goals against says they are overachieving. Them, the Caps and NYI show how bad the metro has been this year.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

All these agenda posts where you want other fans to pile onto your private narrative (Flyers board) that Torts is ackshualla terrible and the Flyers should go the Buffalo route.

Tortorella (whom I hated in Vancouver but have respect for every other job he has done) has done a fabulous job most of the year of getting that team pulling on the same rope. They were playing to the absolute top of their ability and were being helped by a poor Metropolitan division.

It was a delicate balance but he was making it work.

Then they lost their starting goalie to reasons far beyond his control, and then traded their best RD this season. Then had a litany of defensive injuries.

I love Couterier and he looked great for the first 30 games, but statistically it looks like he has hit a wall since then. Which is fine, he's coming off of like 2 years away from the game due to serious and career threatening back injuries.

You know, scratching a player isn't the same as killing him, right? Like, He's still on the team.

I would need to know a lot more about what's going on behind the scenes before I knew whether scratching Coots was as catastrophic as people are making it seem.

But inarguably, Tortorella has done a really good job for at least most of the season. Will be a shame in a way if they miss the playoffs because tanker whining about how 'oh noez we're in the worst place, we should have gone San Jose mode' will absolutely inundate these boards and some media.

As if having some pride as an organization and not quitting and bending over is some awful trait.

 

[Beau Knows]

I remember Torts was getting credit from some, because they won a game where he benched his captain.

But their record since that decision has been horrific, so if you want to play that game, I think you'd have to at least wonder if in the long term it didn't backfire.

 

[Hank Plank]

Let's ask Tortorella only he knows the full extent of how great Tortorella is.

 

[Bondurant]

Torts is a good good. Even a good coach is nit "infallible". The premise of the thread is silly.

 

[WarriorofTime]

The thing is people always say “well his rosters are mediocre” but why would you ever give Torts a talented roster in a modern setting? He’d probably bench MacKinnon or Kucherov just to show he’s the big man around.