Sometimes John Tortorella isn’t worried about the fans. He’s certainly not worried about what agents have to say. And he really doesn’t care if you’re a player and your feelings are hurt because you didn’t get to play in front of family and friends.

But he does care if his team isn’t giving max effort. That really gets under the skin of the coach. Especially when the team is losing with frequency – like it did earlier this season when it dropped 10 straight games, or like right now when the team has lost 10-of-13, especially when it’s to an opponent like the Montreal Canadiens, who are one of the worst NHL squads and who have 10 regulars out of the lineup.

Yep, the Flyers lost a game 5-2 on home ice to a team comprised of at least 50 percent AHL players, and maybe even more than that if you believe some of the guys they had on their next-to-last-place-in-the-Conference roster for much of the season weren’t quite NHL-caliber anyway.

With the loss, the Flyers are now just two points ahead of the Canadiens in the standings, a team the Flyers appeared to have no shot at falling behind at Christmas, but here we are.

It’s one thing to lose a game to a bad team here and there. It happens. But to lose when you don’t play the right way, or you’re just not all going at max capacity and it’s obvious from before the game that there is an aura of low energy, well, that’s something else.


Tortorella has been making a lot of headlines lately with the things he has been saying.

He told reporters after an equally ugly loss in Seattle last Thursday that he isn’t concerned about the fans, he’s just concerned about his hockey team right now:

Friday, he finally addressed his decisions in Calgary, where he benched Joel Farabee for more than two periods and didn’t even go back to him when the team was down to 10 forwards and scratched Travis Sanheim entirely in a game that he would have played in front of a lot of family and friends, since Calgary is the closest city to his hometown and the same city where he played his junior hockey.

Farabee’s agent, Shawn Hunwick, apparently reached out to the Flyers to find out what the heck is going on between the coach and his client. I was told last night that Farabee would have been a healthy scratch in Edmonton the next night if Travis Konencny had not gotten hurt.

Those calls between agents and teams happen more frequently than are reported, but in this instance, the agent leaked the expressed discontent to national media, causing Torts to pop off about it before Friday’s game:

And as for the Sanheim situation, well, Torts played dumb, but only a little bit dumb:

I rehashed all of this fun stuff before even getting to what happened against Montreal. It was a game that after maybe the eight minute mark of the first period straight through to the start of the third period, the Flyers moved like The Walking Dead zombies while the Canadians moved like infected in The Last of Us.

The speed between the two was that disparate.

Torts noticed it, and has noticed it in several games recently, most notably the consecutive losses to Seattle last week:

Yeah, it’s a concern. It’s a concern of mine – and I’m not going to name names, I had a concern two months ago about some guys and how much I’ve played them through the first part of the year, and when are they going to get caught up in that. There’s two or three guys that I have concerns about with that. Is that why? I don’t know. It’s so hard when your whole team looks sluggish to really pinpoint something. But to answer your question, is there concern? Absolutely.

There were some guys that competed hard. I’m not going to stand up here tonight and tell you that we got everything out of everybody. Most nights, as I’ve said all along, that hasn’t been a problem. Tonight wasn’t a full group effort, I’ll put it to you that way.

Well…

Torts did later qualify his comments to make sure we didn’t go too far with the analysis, saying “You guys kind of run with it sometimes, I want to make sure, I don’t think anybody was lazy,” he said. “It’s the only way I know how to put it – sometimes guys just play hard, and some guys play HARD. I think we had a deficiency tonight. I don’t think we were all there.”

Gotcha, John. There was effort but not max effort from some players. Anyway you slice it, it’s unacceptable.

Carter Hart was doing everything he could to stop pucks in the first period and for a while looked like he was somehow going to pull off a Houdini act and get the Flyers to intermission unscathed.

But despite his heroics, the Flyers luck ran out in the final two-plus minutes of the period:

The Flyers had just had a long shift in their own end and were finally able to clear the puck, but as you can see, it wasn’t a good clear, and the Flyers got caught in trying to make a change as both Ivan Provorov and Noah Cates were coming off the bench and had no chance of getting into the play and Hart was hung out to dry.

Still, as bad as they played in the second half of the period, getting to intermission down just 1-0 would have been a win for the Flyers and allowed them to regroup and perhaps come out harder in the second.

But every second matters in hockey and, well, waiver wire pickup Chris Tierney happened:

I asked Torts about this play, because, let’s be honest, the game was over as soon as it happened.

“That’s a kick in the teeth,” he said. “You want to get out of a bad first period just down by a [goal], and it’s just a nothing play with three seconds left. (Cam York) chases for no reason. All you have to do is just defend the most important ice in front of the net instead of chasing and the period will run out. It’s not like we have to breakout or anything, the period’s over. That’s a hard one to swallow, especially when the second half of the first period we were struggling.”

It’s definitely a mistake by York, but the one thing you can say is at least he was trying to make a play. Not sure the same can be said for the rest of the guys on the ice.

Rasmus Ristolainen should go to the front of the net. Instead, he gets caught defending out of position. Scott Laughton who has a chance to get in front of Tierney and deny him the free ice from the top of the circle to the slot, doesn’t because he goes into a glide and doesn’t take the extra skate stride or two that would have denied the play.

And then there’s Kevin Hayes, who was channeling Uncle Kracker, getting lost in the moment and choosing to just “Drift Away.”

From there it only got worse.

Wade Allison took an instigator penalty in the second period during a fight and Montreal scored on the ensuing power play to make it 3-0. And although Owen Tippett scored nine seconds into the third period and for a few minutes the Flyers had a lot of jump and you thought for a moment that one of those furious third period comebacks was about to happen, another breakdown all but sealed it:

Torts, again:

The biggest glare for me tonight is how many pucks we were beaten to…  I thought they thought quicker and they were quicker to pucks, and that’s why we get stuck in our endzone. As far as being stretched out, it’s always important that you’re connected in all three zones. At times we were, but the biggest concern of mine was just the lack of quickness to pucks, to the 50-50s so we can get going the other way instead of being stuck in our endzone.

Damning stuff. And it won’t get any better Saturday night against the Devils if they lack quickness again, because New Jersey is a legit NHL squad loaded with talent.

If they want to keep Sam Ersson’s undefeated streak alive to start his NHL career, they’re going to have to play a lot harder than they did against the Habs.

Speaking of Ersson…

That’s what I was told Friday night was a very real possibility. We’ll see what happens in the next 24 hours, but this makes a lot of sense, even though I’m certain a segment of the fan base will be up in arms for no reason about it.

Consider this:

  • The Flyers only have one game next week – Wednesday at home against the Rangers.
  • Phantoms goalie Troy Grosenick was injured again in their last game and he’s likely going to miss a little time.
  • The Flyers schedule in March gets crazy, but not right away. Yes, there are four games the following week, all games after the trade deadline, but they are spread out every other day, and then the following week the Flyers only have one game in the first five days.
  • It’s not inconceivable that Hart could start each of the next five games, although it’s possible they could want to give him a breather at the end of that in Pittsburgh, which would be an easy trip for Ersson to make if they need to recall him.
  • Speaking of easy trips, the Phantoms play in Bridgeport, Conn. on Sunday. The Flyers can easily get him a postgame car service tonight and have him meet the Phantoms in Bridgeport. From Newark, where the Flyers play, it’s 72 miles.
  • This would allow Ersson to play in a bunch of meaningful games for the Phantoms, who are embroiled in an uber-competitive five-team race for the final three playoff spots in the Atlantic Division (five points separates all five teams). And oh yeah, Bridgeport is one point behind the Phantoms in the standings.
  • The Flyers have been unwilling to put No. 3 goalie Felix Sandstrom through waivers because they believe another team, who might be offering a goalie on their current roster via trade at the deadline, would swoop up Sandstrom in advance of the deadline. Keeping him on the NHL roster until after the deadline could put them in a better position to get him through waivers once teams have set their rosters when the deadline passes. One of the teams the Flyers are worried could snatch up Sandstrom if he were put on waivers before the deadline is Columbus, who may trade goalie Joonas Korpisalo.

Assuming my timeline here is accurate, and the Flyers wouldn’t need Ersson until at least the Pittsburgh game (March 11) and possibly not even until they have back-to-back games the following weekend, Ersson could get anywhere from 5-8 starts with the Phantoms, which would be good for his continued development and could help the Phantoms get closer to a playoff berth, something they haven’t experienced since 2017-18.

In other news…

Desnoyers is a better option than Justin Braun as a winger. No offense to Braun, who is a consummate pro and who has had a nice career as a reliable defenseman, but he’s at the end of the line and him playing fourth line winger against the Canadiens instead of Keiffer Bellows, who was a scratch, tells you Torts doesn’t think much of Bellows.

In fact, he said this:

I just haven’t seen enough from Kieffer to keep him in the lineup…  I think Kieffer’s trying, I just don’t think he’s done enough to stay in the lineup.

And now Desnoyers will get a shot ahead of Bellows, too.

One final note that has nothing to do with hockey but is an example of an athlete who “gets it” at this tough time for the team…

We can all sit here and lament many of Chuck Fletcher’s head-scratching contracts that he has doled out. Giving Nic Deslauriers, of all people, a no-movement clause is one of the all-timers. No movement clauses handicap teams all the time, but they are usually reserved for top end talent, not fourth line pluggers.

The Flyers do believe he’s a really good locker room influence though, and glue guys are always important, no matter if you are a Stanley Cup contender or in the throes of a rebuild.

In the latter case, its important to have a veteran guy who can show younger players how to be a pro, both on and off the ice.

I got a DM from a fan, Trey Dillon, last night who was at the game with his daughter. Here’s his message:

Hey I don’t wanna bug you. But I had (a) Deslauriers minor league jersey on tonight and he threw his stick to me and my daughter. Coolest thing that ever happened. And classy move after a bad loss. I’m telling everyone who will listen lol

Then he sent a photo of his little girl with the stick with the caption “This made her life.”

Sometimes, a little kindness goes a long way. Deslauriers may end up being a Flyers footnote in the grand scheme of things, but this moment likely made a Flyers fan for life. Too often these stories get lost in the shuffle. They should be celebrated more.

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