Despite decrease in ice time, Joel Farabee thriving for Flyers

On Thursday against the Washington Capitals, Joel Farabee — like the rest of his Philadelphia Flyers club — was struggling through two periods of play.

So he and teammate Cam Atkinson had a chat.

“He literally said, ‘Let’s just control what we can control,'” Farabee recalled after the 4-3 victory.

There has been quite a lot that Farabee hasn’t been able to control over the past 18 months — neck surgery two summers ago, his underwhelming 2022-23 campaign that was a direct result of not being able to properly train during the preceding offseason, and now, despite ranking second on the Flyers in goals and all of his statistical results at even strength through the roof, the fact that he’s averaging just 14:53 minutes per night (two fewer minutes than last season).

But after struggling at times to handle the first two situations, he’s now far better equipped to deal with this one.

“I feel like for me last year, I was really spending a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, and wishing things were going one way,” he admitted. “Whereas this year, I feel like I know exactly what Torts expects, and what he needs from me as a player, and I really just try and go out there every night and give whatever I can to the team.”

So after those 40 minutes of underwhelming play, Farabee went out and took over the third period — scoring the initial game-tying goal, nearly helping to create another, and earning the team-distributed “underdog mask” in the process.

It’s a different Joel Farabee this season, in more ways than one. Now, it’s just a matter of getting the kind of usage that can allow him — and the Flyers — to take full advantage of it.

An underdog is a hungry dog. #WSHvsPHI | @FarabeeJoel pic.twitter.com/s8wXwImPDc

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) December 15, 2023

Heading into the 2022 offseason, there was already pressure on Farabee to deliver a bounceback campaign. His impressive sophomore season in 2020-21, when he scored 20 goals in 55 games (a 30-goal pace over 82), established him as one of the team’s top young players. But in 2021-22, his game largely stagnated; his scoring held steady, and his all-around game didn’t take an expected step forward.

Farabee’s goal was to shake off the sideways step. Instead, he took another big step back in 2022-23 — in large part because of one of those uncontrollable events. Lifting a mere 90 pounds in a run-of-the-mill training session in June, Farabee felt a twinge in his neck, and it just wouldn’t go away, leading to disk replacement surgery and a summer spent rehabbing, not building much-needed strength onto a still-slight frame.

The results were predictable. Even though Farabee ultimately appeared in all 82 games — beating his projected return timeline by at least a few weeks — his production was underwhelming at best. More concerning was the continued regression of his two-way play, expected to be a strength when he was drafted in the first round back in 2018. At times, Farabee was a downright defensive liability, and rarely had a positive impact in that regard.

Unsurprisingly, Farabee and head coach John Tortorella had their rough moments as a result, culminating in a brief controversy near the trade deadline when Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli placed Farabee on his Trade Board, apparently inspired by a conversation with someone close to Farabee (Tortorella publicly theorized that it may have been Farabee’s agent, trying to get the word out regarding his client’s frustration with his treatment). But the season ultimately concluded with Tortorella giving Farabee a public pass for his underwhelming year. After all, Tortorella acknowledged, the lack of training in the summer had clearly hurt Farabee, especially given his main weakness as a young NHL player centered around a need for improved physical strength.

The underlying message from Tortorella was clear, however: no such pass would be given in Year 2 of his tenure.

Farabee hasn’t required a pass in 2023-24. His 11 goals are second on the team, trailing only Travis Konecny and his 16. And he simply looks stronger and faster, a testament to his hard work over the summer — the training he wished he could have put in 12 months prior.

“I think for me this year, a lot of it’s conditioning,” Farabee said. “I feel like my conditioning over three periods is so much better. So I feel like just having that strength in my legs from working out this summer has helped me a ton. I’m definitely up some weight from last year for sure, so my upper body is definitely a little bit stronger. But just winning stick battles in front, things like that, I feel like I’m not losing as many battles along the walls and things like that. That’s a big part of my game.”

It’s showing in his 5-on-5 results, as at least thus far, Joel Farabee has been one of the most effective 5-on-5 forwards in all of hockey.

That’s not an overstatement. Farabee has long been an effective 5-on-5 scorer, grading out as a high-end second liner (137th among NHL forwards) by Points per 60 even last season, and never ranking lower than a mid-tier second line scorer in any of his NHL seasons thus far. But he’s reached an entirely new level this season.

Heading into Saturday’s game against the Detroit Red Wings, Farabee was averaging 2.88 Points/60 at 5-on-5 — good for 18th best among NHL forwards with at least 100 minutes played so far thus season. His results are even more impressive when looking only at primary points, removing the noise of (often random) secondary assists. A whopping 2.72 of his 2.88 Points/60 have been of the primary variety, ranking him fourth in the NHL in that regard. From an efficiency standpoint, few forwards in the league have been better than Farabee.

And for the first time in Farabee’s career, his 5-on-5 success isn’t merely coming via point production. The Flyers are outchancing the opposition with him on the ice as well — a new and welcome development. Farabee currently ranks in the 85th percentile in terms of his isolated impact on the Flyers’ even strength xG differential, and that’s largely driven by his stellar defensive results, which rank in the 90th percentile.

Tortorella, Farabee noted, has been a big part of pushing him to improve in that area.

“Just the mentality of going out there, blocking shots, doing whatever it takes to get the puck out, I think is something I’ve always tried to work on,” Farabee said. “I feel like my last two years under Torts, my defensive game has gotten a lot better just knowing where to be, when to try to make a play out of the D zone, when not to.”I think all of that comes from just playing.”

But “just playing” has been a bit of an issue under that same head coach.

One would think that the clear improvement in Farabee’s results would drive Tortorella to lean upon the 23-year old more. But the reality has been the opposite — Farabee entered Saturday averaging just 14:53 minutes per game, down over two minutes from his end-of-season totals in 2022-23.

Farabee’s ice time at 5-on-5 is down a bit year-over-year — 28 seconds per night as compared to 2022-23. But that still ranks him fourth among Flyers forwards in the situation (behind only Sean Couturier, Tyson Foerster and Travis Konecny). The bigger reason for his place as a third liner in terms of overall minutes is his minimal role on special teams — he was pulled off the power play in late November, and hasn’t been used on the penalty kill barely at all, after being a regular on it in the past.

Perhaps last season, the decrease in responsibilities despite improved all around play would have gotten to Farabee, and he would have wallowed in self-pity. This year, however, he’s just continued to excel in the ice time he has received.

“He’s been plugging away,” Tortorella said after Thursday’s victory. “He loses ice time when I don’t have him on the power play, I’m not using him killing penalties. I’m sure he wants to be on one of those special teams, but he’s shut his mouth and just played.”

“As a player, obviously, you want as much ice time as you can get,” Farabee said. “But I’m willing to give up a few minutes if it means the team’s gonna win.”

It’s an admirable sentiment. But it remains questionable whether Farabee giving up a few minutes is actually helping the Flyers win, given Farabee’s stellar results at five-on-five.

So why is Farabee’s ice time down?

Tortorella noted on Friday that assistant coach Rocky Thompson — who runs the team’s power play — requested specifically that they stick with the current five-man units for a bit longer than usual, in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to get the moribund power play rolling, and Farabee happened to be out of the ten-man mix when Thompson gained that concession from the sometimes lineup trigger-happy Tortorella. As for the PK, Farabee was pushed off the stellar unit by the returns from injury of Couturier and Atkinson, and the offseason additions of Garnet Hathaway and Ryan Poehling.

“It’s just the way it’s worked out,” Tortorella contended on the team’s most recent road trip. “It isn’t in a negative way, because he hasn’t gotten that, (it speaks to) how we feel about him. It’s just the way other guys have played, too. So it’s not just thinking about one guy. It’s what other guys are doing. That’s just the way it’s fallen into play.”

But there are quite a few forwards ahead of Farabee on the depth chart who do not have a strong case for being better than him this season. Farabee has outscored Laughton (15:46) and Atkinson (17:26) in fewer minutes. He’s been a more consistent offensive threat than Foerster, who currently tops the LW depth chart despite being a natural right wing. Even Morgan Frost is averaging more minutes per game than Farabee.

So what gives? One could certainly argue that Farabee isn’t one of Tortorella’s favorite players — after all, Tortorella did bench Farabee after just two shifts on November 30 against the New Jersey Devils due to a blown defensive assignment, the only player so far this season to receive such a drastic in-game punishment.

But Farabee has responded well to the benching, keeping his frustration out of the public’s eye and scoring four points in his last five games.

“I mean, I wasn’t trying to make a mistake on that very specific play, but I understood exactly what Torts was saying, and I completely understand why I needed to be sat that night,” Farabee said on Friday. “You can sit and pout about it, and say whatever. Obviously, I was pretty upset the day it happened. But the next day, you just come into the rink, it’s a new day, and you just go from there.”

In other words, he responded exactly the way Tortorella claims to want his players to respond to being disciplined.

“I think that’s part of your job. You got a bitch with me about it? You come and talk to me,” he noted. “Beezer has before in situations. Didn’t this time. I think he knew why he was benched. Probably didn’t agree with it, but didn’t feel he needed to come to me. He just kept on practicing, kept on going about it.”

And Tortorella sure seems impressed with Farabee’s post-discipline approach.

“I think that’s part of a player’s job,” he reiterated. “‘Okay, if that’s the way it is, then I gotta find another way to get back in there, and get my minutes back.’ And I think that’s what Joel has done.”

So will Farabee’s minutes start to go up? Perhaps. Thompson did indeed have Farabee back on the power play on Saturday night for the Flyers’ 1-0 win over the Red Wings — but he still ended up with just 14:16 minutes of total ice, below his season average.

“I think you’re gonna see Beezer get some time here. I do,” Tortorella said regarding Farabee’s future PP usage. “Sooner or later, when a player is kicking in offensively and just playing consistent hockey, you have to give him a chance. So I think you’re going to see him get some time. We’ll see where we go with it.”

As for Farabee, he remains focused on controlling what he can control, just as he did in the third period on Thursday, whether his ice time increases or not.

“I feel like my rookie year, I would be so upset after a win, sometimes, of how I played. But I’ve just realized that, in my career now, all I really want to do is win,” he said. “So whatever it takes, whatever role I play, I just want to win. For me, it’s just getting in that mindset of there’s gonna be good games, there’s gonna be bad games, but just helping the team win every night is really all you can really do.”

And in the process, he’s having his best NHL season yet.

“If us getting into the playoffs means I’ve got to play five less minutes a night, that’s fine,” he affirmed.

But just maybe, the Flyers getting into the playoffs might ultimately require Farabee getting five minutes more per night instead.