Flyers are a two-line team right now, but John Tortorella only likes one of them

CHICAGO — If you were expecting John Tortorella to come away truly happy with the Philadelphia Flyers’ 3-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday night — well, that’s not what you received via his postgame comments.

“We win, and we’re leaving,” he tersely stated. “There’s not too much to discuss about the game. It’s just good we got the two points.”

In Tortorella’s mind, perhaps that did qualify as praise. After all, he had noted in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s 6-3 Stadium Series loss to the New Jersey Devils that he was especially concerned about their next game against the league-worst Blackhawks.

“That game scares the shit out of me,” he offered unprompted.

Two days later at practice, Tortorella elaborated why.

“Chicago plays hard. And they’re in all the games,” he said. “I just don’t want us to think, ‘Outdoor game, Jersey, we just played Toronto, and now we’re playing a team that’s last.'”

So the Flyers head coach was primed to hold his club to an especially high standard in this one.

“I just want to make sure that we are dead set ready to play, basically after all that stuff with the outdoor game,” Tortorella continued. “Get our regular season going again.”

And in some ways, the Flyers did. They never trailed on Wednesday, outshooting Chicago 33 – 22 and 30 – 15 through two periods. They held rookie phenom Connor Bedard to zero points and three shots on goal across nearly 25 minutes of ice time. And as Tortorella acknowledged, they got the two points, halting the team’s two-game skid and preventing it from spiraling into an actual losing streak.

So what was the problem?

“It wasn’t pretty, right?” he noted. “It was not pretty.”

The Flyers may have controlled play in the first period (38 – 13 edge in shot attempts at 5-on-5) but when they did allow Chicago the puck, it was in transition via odd-man rushes. Sam Ersson bailed them out once via a lunging stop on Taylor Raddysh — earning effusive praise from Swedish countryman (and legendary NHL goalie) Henrik Lundqvist on the national TNT broadcast as a result — but couldn’t do the same on Colin Blackwell shortly thereafter. And then, after a much more complete second period, the Flyers coasted in the third, generating just three shots on goal and conceded puck possession to their cellar-dwelling opponents.

“To be honest, it wasn’t a clean game for us,” Travis Konecny admitted.

Against the Blackhawks, it was enough. Against the Rangers, Penguins and Lightning, their next three opponents? It very likely will not be.

Which leads us to the Flyers’ biggest problem in the here and now: not enough of their forward lines are truly rolling.

Tortorella’s apparent challenge to his players midway through Monday’s practice — punctuated by Tortorella pointing to multiple players in a circle and seemingly pressing them to specifically up their games — spoke to this very real issue, which Sean Couturier essentially confirmed soon after the skate.

“We need to be better,” Couturier said. “Some of us haven’t been our best the last couple games. It’s on us — especially me — to get back to being the player I am. I just need to be better in general. That was the message overall, we need to be better. We can’t kid ourselves.”

Unfortunately for the Flyers, the new-look Couturier line — with the team’s new captain flanked by Owen Tippett and Cam Atkinson — continued to underwhelm. In fact, Tortorella didn’t even try to match Couturier against Bedard, as the Flyers’ shutdown center faced the dangerous rookie for just 3:09 minutes at 5-on-5, instead largely matching up with the far less imposing Jason Dickinson line. And due to Tortorella’s continued insistence upon using the 11-forward/7-defenseman lineup even with Rasmus Ristolainen out with injury and prospect Olle Lycksell waiting for a chance to prove he can stick in the NHL, the fourth “line” is basically just Scott Laughton getting extra shifts on other trios and Nicolas Deslauriers occasionally checking in as well.

Which leaves two lines to evaluate: the new line of Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost and Travis Konecny, and the Noah Cates-Ryan Poehling-Garnet Hathaway trio, which was put together starting last Monday against Arizona.

Tortorella liked one of the two lines on Wednesday. And it wasn’t the group with the team’s two leading scorers.

“That’s one line that I liked tonight,” Tortorella said regarding the Poehling line. “I wasn’t too crazy about any other lines. But that’s one line I had trust in tonight.”

In fairness to Tortorella, the Cates-Poehling-Hathaway line was undeniably effective, with Hathaway scoring the game-clinching third goal via a rebound off a Cates shot.

“It’s about time he got rewarded,” Tortorella said.

Nor was this their first strong game as a group. Entering Wednesday, the trio had posted a ridiculous 87.35 percent expected goal share at 5-on-5 (per Evolving-Hockey) in 27:30 minutes. They clearly have some real chemistry.

“I think Catesy’s unbelievable at puck battles, holding onto pucks,” Hathaway said. “Making plays, too, and knowing when he can pass it in a scrum, and knowing when he has to hold it a little longer. And Poehls’ speed, I think that creates a lot of open ice.”

But what about the new Frost line? By the numbers, at least, it too was stellar on Wednesday. Handed the bulk of the Bedard matchup, the trio was a shot-generation machine, posting a 23 – 9 shot attempt advantage and winning the scoring chance battle (per Natural Stat Trick) over Chicago by a 9 – 4 margin.

Tortorella, however, wasn’t impressed.

“Didn’t like a whole hell of a lot of it tonight,” he said regarding the Farabee-Frost-Konecny line. “They were too lateral.”

The Flyers’ head coach, of course, isn’t above playing the motivation game with players, challenging them to not be satisfied with merely solid work when he believes greatness is possible. But this criticism appeared sincere; Tortorella truly thought the Frost line flopped. Konecny certainly took his head coach’s critique — which sure seems like it also happened either on the bench or behind closed doors — to heart.

“We like playing with the puck, we like making plays,” Konecny said when asked about the new line after the win. “I think, at times, we can be a little safer with it. Torts reels us back in.”

Was the line perfect? Of course not. They got caught up in some early turnovers in the first period that led to transition rushes and quality Blackhawks chances. But considering the fact that the trio was on the ice for four, three, and four shot attempts at 5-on-5 respectively through 20 minutes, they probably weren’t making too many mistakes.

There’s also the fact that two of the three — Farabee and Konecny — delivered gamechanging plays which powered the Flyers to the win.

It was Farabee’s work more than anything else that led to Travis Sanheim’s game-opening goal; with Frost heading off the ice on a line change, Farabee pushed the puck into the offensive zone, and then essentially won a 1-on-4 battle to keep it alive until Scott Laughton (who replaced Frost) jumped into the zone and provided puck support, moving it to Sanheim for a shot that bounced off Alex Vlasic and into the Chicago net.

And then, there was Konecny’s end-to-end goal in the second period, the eventual gamewinner. It was an individual already impressive at first glance, and only moreso upon the realization that Konecny was a minute into an especially long shift when he began his move up ice, first whiffing on a pass attempt to Farabee before tapping into his last reserves of energy to blast around defenseman Jarred Tinordi and rip a snipe past Arvid Soderblom.

That, at least, earned praise from Tortorella.

“He has to concentrate on the shift lengths, we’re always going to try to keep everybody accountable there. (But) I’m never worried if it gets extended out there (with him), because he has such a great engine,” Tortorella acknowledged. “He’s such a well-conditioned athlete. I coached a guy in Columbus, (Artemi) Panarin. He is the best player I’ve seen play tired. It’s something some people have. TK has a little bit of that in him.”

So why did Tortorella dislike the Frost line’s play so much, despite Konecny and Farabee’s big plays, and the trio’s stellar metrics? Tortorella referenced “situational play” as his primary complaint, and strongly hinted that he may not keep the group together, pending his final evaluation of the gametape.

But given the Flyers’ current situation, they may not be able to afford to break up a line showcasing this kind of offensive potential.

Couturier is still trying to get back on track, and Cam Atkinson now has gone nine straight games without a point. The looming return of Tyson Foerster may help a bit — and get the Flyers back to a 12F/6D “normal” lineup — but he hasn’t exactly been lighting the lamp at the NHL level this season, and unless Tortorella changes his tune on Lycksell, a Foerster-infused fourth line would still include Nicolas Deslauriers, who hasn’t scored a point since way back on December 7.

The Poehling line may be earning Tortorella’s trust, but at heart, it’s still more of a checking line than one relied upon for consistent offense. To beat the Rangers, Penguins and Lightning, they’re going to need to be a lot more than just a one-line team.

Which means that Tortorella may just have to put up with a line he doesn’t like so far, in order to have a chance to keep pace in a tight Eastern Conference playoff race.