Flyers

Bag it to Broad: Kevin Hayes Does Not Agree with Benching

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Dec 19th, 2022 · 2:08 PM EST

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Bag it to Broad:

“I don’t think I should have been benched, but he’s the coach, I’m the player,” Kevin Hayes said about John Tortorella scratching him Saturday.

— Giana Han (@giana_jade) December 19, 2022

Benching your points leader. That’s a bold strategy, Cotton! Let’s see if it pays off for the Flyers.

There’s some irony in Keith Yandle calling out Torts here:

John Tortorella healthy-scratched Kevin Hayes on Saturday, who leads the Flyers in scoring. Keith Yandle sounded OFF on the coach's decision 🍿 pic.twitter.com/aerZYlxS6g

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) December 17, 2022

Yandle should have been healthy scratched aeons ago, but got a free pass because he was chasing the ironman record on a shitty team that had nothing to play for. That’s the fact, jack.

By the way, we didn’t even mention Lukas Sedlak, who basically said “fuck it, I’m out,” and left the Flyers to go home to the Czech Republic. Think about that for a minute. This dude is only 29 and was logging career-high ice time this year, yet decided to peace out anyway. I could understand if Sedlak was buried on the bench at 34 years old, but that’s not the situation here.

So just to recap, in the last week:

1. Hayes is benched
2. Sedlak peaces out
3. Cam Atkinson is ruled out for the year

And you thought rock bottom was when that dog shit on the ice last year. I don’t even think we’ve reached rock bottom yet. We’ve easily delved beyond the hockey version of Dante’s nine circles of hell. We’ve got to be somewhere around circle number 47 or 48 at this point. We’re going further down than Ed Harris in The Abyss.