Scott Laughton might need to reach out to Phillies catcher Garrett Stubbs for some tips on post victory music celebrations.

Following the unexpected 5-2 win over New Jersey in the season opener Thursday, Flyers PR accidentally opened the locker room to the media a little early. The Flyers were still wrapping up their player of the game moment, which, apparently this season is going to be giving said player a baseball bat and then they have to pose in their best batting stance.

The presentation took a little longer than usual, and the media almost stumbled in on Travis Konecny, who scored a pair of goals, doing his best Rhys Hoskins impression, but because John Tortorella, despite being a progressive-thinker in how to manage personalities in today’s NHL, is still a bit of an old school coach, he prefers to do his press conference after the players speak.

So as the media filed in to the locker room, Laughton lamented that the celebration music didn’t even make it through the first song, before it had to be turned down so the media could conduct their interviews.

“We didn’t even make it through one fucking song,” he lamented, kicking off his skates in disgust.


It was the same kind of piss and vinegar that was on display on the ice by Laughton for an entire 60 minutes of hockey against the Devils.

Laughton was in the middle of several scrums and nastiness that took place on opening night. There were no fights, but there didn’t have to be. The Flyers wanted to set a tone. Set a tempo. Send a message.

And Laughton, the only player on the ice with a letter on his sweater, was trying to lead the way – and did so with a little piss and vinegar in his game.

“It was intentional, yes,” Laughton said. “Especially at home. We knew we were going to have a great crowd, so it was important to have a great start and get the crowd into it.”

Because the crowd wasn’t into it pre-game. As individuals were being introduced, there were almost cricket chirps coming from the robust crowd of 19,107, which is a little higher than what was actually in the building, but not much.

Eventually Tortorella got the first big applause, and then only a handful of players really got to hear the crowd’s appreciation, including the injured Sean Couturier and Cam Atkinson, and a few of the players who played last night as well.

It was a real message from the fans that they were there and they were watching, but that the team had a lot of work to do to prove it deserved their vocal appreciation once again.

One where the fans took it too far though was on the introduction of injured defenseman Ryan Ellis:

https://twitter.com/travieballin26/status/1580697800127696900

I understand the frustration, but do you really think the guy wants to be saddled with a career-threatening injury? Booing the guy is not fair. Plain and simple.

But, back to Laughton…

It was really interesting to see him as the lone leadership representative on the ice. There’s been a lot made about the Flyers not having a captain to start the season. Part of that is Torts molding his players into the collective he wants, but part of it is also missing guys like Coots, Atkinson, and Ellis, who likely would have been team leaders if they weren’t injured.

But to give Laughton the only ‘A’ when guys like Ivan Provorov and Kevin Hayes were on the ice, it speaks volumes of what the coaches think of Laughton and secondarily what they feel he can do to help shape a new identity for the Flyers.

Could he be a guy who eventually emerges as a captain? Yes. When you go back to Tortorella’s first team, the captain of his Stanley Cup winning Tampa Bay Lightning was veteran forward Dave Andreychuk. Now, Andreychuk was toward the end of a Hall of Fame career at that point, and was a prolific offensive player, but the final eight seasons of his career, he was mostly a third liner, who played hard minutes and was a grinder and a leader who didn’t score as much as the stars on that team.

But it was the kind of guy Tortorella turned to in an effort to bring that group together to win a championship.

Laughton is no Andreychuk offensively, but he is the second-longest tenured Flyer behind Couturier, and although he is only 28, Thursday kicked off his 10th NHL season. He plays now a lot like Andreychuk did in his later years, and the two have similar leadership skills. Might the Flyers new coach be seeing a parallel between them, some two decades later?

Tortorella didn’t speak to Laughton directly, but he did describe what he’s looking to create with his team and Laughton is the perfect type of player for younger players to watch and bring this style back to Philadelphia:

“We  want to create an identity. I envision what I’d like to see it be, but we gotta go through the steps to get there. Playing that way is certainly a part of it. I just want the team that plays against us to say, ‘man, they play hard.’ Because I think in this league, if you’re true and honest and you play hard, you find a way to get into the win column more often than not. Maybe only 35-40 minutes of it is good hockey, but if you continue to play hard, you find a way. That’s what this league is. How many teams win when maybe they didn’t play their best hockey, and the other team played more better minutes than them? You find a way to get it done. We had some lousy minutes (Thursday) but we found a way to get it done.”

Another thing is, the Flyers feel a little disrespected. Not many people in hockey think much of them as a team this season.. Even I went on Snow the Goalie last week and predicted a last place finish for the Flyers in the Metropolitan Division, although I still think there will be some improvement from a season ago, simply based on Tortorella’s coaching and a lot of young players developing within his system.

The Flyers are already taking that to heart.

“There’s doubters out there, for sure,” Laughton said. “But we made our own bed here the last couple years. We haven’t been good enough. Especially at home. But now we have to prove those people wrong and prove that we’re a good team and that’s a good start for us to get off to with a win.”

Konecny and Morgan Frost each had a pair of goals (Frost’s second was an empty-netter, own goal, but, he’ll take it), and Wade Allison had the first goal of the season for the Flyers, scoring on a rebound to tie the score after the Flyers fell behind 1-0.

After a weak goal in the first period, Carter Hart was superb the rest of the way, making 35 saves. But the most underrated players on the ice were Ivan Provorov and Tony DeAngelo, who looked like they’ve played together for a decade, and not just one preseason game.

Provorov was outstanding, arguably the best player on the ice. He was physical, he was strong defensively. He even bailed out Hart at one point:

Both Provorov and DeAngelo finished with two assists. Provorov was a plus-4, DeAngelo plus-3. They also led all Flyers skaters in ice time.  Provorov led the Flyers in hits with five and blocked shots with 10.

That’s right. He had 10 blocked shots by himself. In an October hockey game.

DeAngelo was tied for second on the team in blocked shots with three.

“I don’t think people believe in us,” Tortorella said. “Hopefully that will give us the juice to prove them wrong and we took a step in the right direction. This is an important market. If we can continue and just try to grow, I’m not sure how it’ll go, but if we can get it back to where this place is supposed to be, how I remember it, it’ll be good for the league.”

NOTES:

  • Travis Sanheim signed an eight-year, $50 million contract extension prior to the game. It’s a rich deal, but it should have value on the back end. The term is long, though. Especially for a guy who is still on your second pair. Risky on the term, but the money seems right. Sanheim said he and his parents had an emotional moment when they talked about the contract the night before. He said he was going to celebrate with a few drinks after the game, but is mostly looking forward to having his afternoon naps back, something that he didn’t have the last couple days because of the negotiations.
  • The top four players on the Flyers defense now have contracts paying out more than $130 million. Their AAV of $23 million next year is quite high. There’s going to be a great expectation on that top four moving forward because of the investment.
  • Owen Tippett was hurt in the opener and never returned with an upper body injury. No injury update yet, but the Flyers recalled Jackson Cates Friday morning (sending defenseman Ronnie Attard back to to Lehigh Valley), so it’s likely that Tippett will miss at least Saturday’s game in Vancouver.
  • The Flyers next opponent, Vancouver, comes in on the second game of a five-game road trip to start the season after blowing a three-goal lead and losing in regulation to Edmonton in the opener. They’re going to be a little salty, for sure. The game could have some excitement because they’ll be coming into the contest not in the greatest of moods.