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16 Comments (8 conversations)
Bob MCH
Great loss and great news on the draft lottery possibility. MM continues to develop. Torts helped the tank with the yanking of York, and hopefully he coaches them into all losses the rest of the way. That said, Torts has worn out his welcome, and it is a shame he blew a top five draft opportunity last year with his system wins getting a weak roster to overachieve, but at least it is playing out nicely this year. They must find a 1-C to play with MM over the next decade, a true elite young stud, in this coming draft. That would be a good start for this rebuild.
guadzilla
You really need to stop blaming the wrong person, Bob. Coaches are hired to win – no self-respecting coach is going to come in and teach his players to play less than 100% or to deliberately throw the game. You have an issue with the Flyers not tanking – blame the management, not the coach. Blaming Torts for teaching the young players to play within good structure and building good habits is, with respect, asinine.
Bob MCH
No, I think the correct perspective here is that Torts is not the right coach for a rebuilding roster, which is management’s mistake, however, as a coach, it is Tort’s responsibility to develop a young roster if he has accepted the job of coaching a rebuild. Here is the rub on Torts: Playing under a “perfectionist” is not the optimal environment for young player development. Getting disciplined for every mistake, having to be perfect all the time, is no way to gain confidence, to learn what skills you actually have as a player, to hone those skills with experimentation that sometimes results in mistakes. Think about your life. Have you ever been able to reach your full potential under a dictator perfectionist authority? I bet 99.9% of all humans would agree, the answer is no. Torts style is completely wrong for a rebuild. He is culpable in two ways: First, by taking the job in the first place, knowing it is a long rebuild situation, and second, by demanding perfection from kids. He has to go.
guadzilla
“It’s pretty easy to imagine York interpreting this treatment as more about Tortorella needing a new whipping boy, especially with past target of ire Morgan Frost no longer on the roster.”
It’s equally easy to imagine that people outside the locker room are looking for convenient answers that fit a pre-determined narrative (that Torts has to have a whipping boy). It couldn’t be anything else, could it?
The argument for pushing York is that he DOES have the capability to be better – same as Frost: those are the players that Torts challenges (not the Seelers and Abols). But he needs to get there: his current level of play is eminently forgettable. Has he shown anything that makes him look like a reliable top pair D-man? No. Shut-down defender? No. Elite puck-mover? No. Offensively gifted? No. I am sure his advanced analytics look good, but a big part of that is the system the team plays in – this team’s analytics have always been better than their performance, for a long enough stretch that it cannot be explained away as just statistical variance.
So either they keep letting York continue to be the forgettable, inconsistent D-man that he’s been this entire season, or they try to push him and see if he is able to level up and achieve his potential.
So then the question becomes – is this the best way to do so? Cue arguments about hurt feelings, etc. etc. Here’s the thing about that:
(a) we dont know that this is the only feedback they’ve given York. I think it is pretty unlikely that they just sat around all season and then suddenly decided to sit him without any prior teaching attempts.
(b) these are professional athletes playing a sport known for its toughness, not delicate wall-flowers. If they can’t handle justified benching for under-performance, it’s going to be hard for them to prosper at this level
Matt
The problem with your line of arguments, including a reply to a comment above, is that Torts is part of the “triumvirate” (hahaha) and is absolutely part of the front office division making process. He is not just a coach trying to win.
If he is supposed to be thinking about the team long term, and has input into roster management, then he needs to stop coaching so reactively and try to help the future by not highlighting bad play. He has actively decreased the value of players who then get traded for less return. Embarrassing York before we need to sign him to a contract (or trade him) makes zero sense. If Torts wants two roles then he needs to show he has the capability of thinking like a coach and someone with front office responsibilities.
Bob MCH
Totally agree Matt. Torts has created an environment of perfectionism, which is not the way young kids can reach their potential. Has he developed one young kid? Nope. Not one. Fear does not bread success. He has to go.
Jason
“I’m not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season, where we’re at right now.”
There’s brutal honestly, and then there’s this quote. Holy cow. How are the players supposed to show any interest if their own coach is saying he has no interest in coaching them?
To me, this sounds like a guy who knows his days are numbered.
guadzilla
The way I understood it was that him saying that he knows the team is in tank mode, and the players know that they are in tank mode, and its hard to get them to play with same intensity as if they were really playing to win. And that’s also taken his foot off the gas pedal a little in terms of how hard he is coaching the players – and that in general, he hates this tanking approach.
FWIW, it’s being realistic – much as we’d like to think that players will all perform 100% every game, they are human and motivation plays a big role. I’d have been more concerned if he was acting as if the overall tanking situation didnt matter, and that he was holding the players to the same standard as if they were trying to make the playoffs: that would be a quick way to lose the locker room.
And this statement was basically him expressing his general dislike for
guadzilla
*This statement was basically him expressing his general dislike for coaching in a tanking season. Atleast that’s how it seemed, given the interview in its entirety.
Bob MCH
Great point. That was an awful quote from Torts. Says a lot about his acceptance of the rebuild. He does not accept it, never has, and never will. Wrong coach. Once you have an all-star laden cup contender of veterans, sure, hire Torts and let him win a cup. But for a rebuild, he is a complete misalignment.
Matt Stegall
Enough is Enough. It’s time to clean out the coaching staff (except Shaw) and go with a younger coach that knows how to coach “todays game”. The mind games and what-not are a waste of everyone’s time and it shows. In my mind it’s pretty clear that he’s lost the room and no one really appears to be playing for Torts anymore. Get someone in there that knows how to talk to them and reach them without the mind games.
John Starbuck
Torts benching of York was personal. It was wrong. It hurt the team, the rest of the defensemen which included two young and barely NHL quality players, and it hurt a struggling goalie.
If Briere was on the edge about Torts coaching next season, this game would have been the decider.
Oh, and if you bench a top pair defenseman for most of a game, you don’t get to defend your PP coach who is 0 for March, and has a dismal three year history of PP results. That kind of hypocrisy doesn’t escape the observation of the team.
Bryan
Draft lottery update is actually selling it short a little. We’ve played 73 games, not 72. We’re actually now closer to 3rd (Nashville) than we are to 5th (Buffalo).
3. Nashville: 0.437
4. Philadelphia: 0.445
5. Buffalo: 0.457
6. Seattle: 0.458
Bob MCH
Excellent!
DA-FlyersMan
The only thing I’ve been thinking since he scored the goal…who the hell is Bobby McMann and how does he have 20 goals this season? Must be nice to have a totally random dude on your team who can pot 20, right?
chucklesbiscotti
I’m a believer in Top 3 odds.