The Flyers were back at practice Sunday after a weeklong break, refreshed and ready to tackle the final 32 games of the season.

Owen Tippett was on the ice in South Florida and is expected to play when the team resumes their season Tuesday night against the Panthers, his former squad.

It’ll be the beginning of a push for the Flyers to try to make a completely unexpected drive for the playoffs.

Unlike a season ago, when fans were gaslit by management that the team was in playoff contention, when it really wasn’t, this season, they truly are.

But also, unlike last season, there aren’t competing messages from the coach and the general manager.

Nope. No matter where the Flyers are in the standings. No matter how well, how poorly, or anywhere in between they are playing, the focus over the next month leading up to the trade deadline – and even beyond it – remains the same. The team is still in the middle of a rebuild and nothing will change that approach.

Last season, coach John Tortorella and then-GM Chuck Fletcher had dueling press conferences on the same day saying completely different things. Now, as much as Torts wants to win – and he’ll colorfully tell you how much he wants to win, as you’ll see in a minute – he also is on board with sticking with the long-term plan, even if it means not winning this season.

He didn’t use those words specifically, but the tenor was there in his media availability in Florida after Sunday’s practice.

“We’re kind of in a situation that a lot of people didn’t think we would be in,” Tortorella said. “We’re starting our last 32 games here and we’re looking to try and do the things we want to do to get where we want to be, but we’re also not backing off at all about what we’re trying to do with the organization with the big picture as far as rebuilding.


“I think some people have watched us play and have watched our players play and I think there’ll be some questions of (GM) Danny (Briere) asking ‘What about this guy or that guy?’ Those are questions we have to take, and we have to listen to. I don’t want to speak out of turn with Danny, but if it’s a situation where it’s a really good asset that comes back, it’s going to happen. We cannot lose sight of what we’re doing here. But on the other side of that, we’re going to try to win every God damn game we play. We’ve lost our last five and I think it’s very important that we get our energy back, our swagger back – both offensively and defensively …to try to find a way. That is paramount, as far as the coaching staff. The other stuff that comes around when you get near the deadline – and you see deals are being made now – those are things the organization will listen to, I’m sure, and have discussions. And if it’s the proper asset coming back and we’re going to lose one of the players who is a big part of building this right now, this season, there will be no hesitation.”

We’ve recently discussed the names that will be most intriguing to pay attention to over the course of the next month. Briere is already having cursory conversations with teams about these players. Torts and he are in lockstep with one another.

The plan is simple – Try and win with what we have, and if we do, great, but we are sticking with the plan to build for sustained success whether we win now or not.

And it’s the right way to go about it, and not the ways of the past.

The Flyers’ transparency about all of this makes it so much more palatable than in the past as well. At least now, if the team fails, it’s failing upward. It’s failing in an effort to get better. No, this isn’t tanking. It’s a far different approach. It’s building something sustainable while not succeeding rather than just bottoming out and crossing your fingers that you land a star player in the draft and it all comes together neatly, which it rarely ever does.

But Torts wasn’t done with his comments Sunday. Oh no, he never is.

The thing about him, whether you like his approach or not, is he always tells you something, even when he doesn’t answer your questions. Hey, I should know.

Sometimes he’s incredibly forthright. Sometimes you have to glean what he’s saying by deconstructing his answers. If you are simply looking for a sound bite, you might get one, but that isn’t the crux of his message.

There are times you need to contextualize his theatrics. There are times the theatre is blunt and in your face.

Torts wasn’t holding back Sunday.

He made his first public comments about Tippett’s new eight-year deal with the Flyers, and talked about how great it was to lock up a player of Tippett’s caliber for so long. He reiterated what he’s said before Tippett has the ability to be a star player in the league.

But more importantly, he answered a great follow-up question from Jackie Spiegel of the Philadelphia Inquirer that asked how important it was for Tippett to want to play for Philadelphia long-term.


“It’s important for this group right now, because he’s a big part of this group,” Torts said, before really getting to the big answer. “But for what’s gone on the last little while in Philly, we were kind of losing our way – I think we’ve been very honest that we lost our way a little bit – we want this to be a destination. We want players to say, ‘You know what, I want to check out that organization.’ When you get to those times where you are signing those free agents – we’re not there yet – we want people to say, ‘That’s a place I got to really look hard at.’ We’ve got to build that, so when you have a guy (like Tippett) saying that, it’s very important to the organization.”

And that’s been the coordinated message in the past month. It was the planned message of management on the night of the Cutter Gauthier trade for Jaime Drysdale. Its why Torts came at me in not one, but two press conferences defending Kevin Hayes. His is a message to players both in his own locker room and in other locker rooms that this is an organization you want to play for again.

The Flyers, at one time, were a premier destination for hockey players. They knew they would be treated like royalty by the organization. It is a great area of the country to live – four seasons, good schools, convenient for travel to major destinations, and in terms of the hockey travel, not as lengthy with so many teams close together. And there are breaks on their contracts – like practicing in New Jersey so they don’t have to pay Philly’s city wage tax, except on game nights.

But after Ed Snider’s passing, a lot of that identity was lost, and what remained wasn’t enough to attract players to a losing franchise that was riddled with behind-the-scenes drama.

Torts is doing his best to bring that back as a coach. We’ve already reviewed ad nauseam how Briere, along with President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones and Comcast-Spectacor CEO Dan Hilferty, have been doing this since the regime change last Spring. But we were never quite sure how Torts fit into this entire operation from a messaging standpoint. After all, he’s always marched to the beat of his own drummer when it comes to stuff like this.

However, he’s made it clear recently, his drummer is on the line with the rest of the organization’s percussionists, and he reiterated it again Sunday.

No matter what you think of Torts, that’s great for the Flyers, regardless of if they make the playoffs in a couple months or not.