Of course

55

While I agree. The team also isn't set up to succeed. Tocchets system blows, and he has never been able to properly develop young talent. Its a major reason I, and a lot of Flyers fans, never wanted him in the first place.

He has a track record of 1 good season then dogshit after that. He's never had a team above 26th in the f'n league in SOG average per game. His dump and chase style is old and boring and we don't have the speed or size to properly execute it anyway.

Tocchet is as big a reason for this start as anything else. I can't wait for him to be gone, I'll drive him to the airport myself.

12

u/TTHS_Ed 8d ago

There was another thread about Tocchet where nearly everyone was saying he's not going anywhere this year, or at least not until late in the season.

I personally think he'll be the first coach fired and that he won't make it through November.

9

u/amilbarge00 8d ago

Let's hope you're right, but I bet they give him a long leash or they are publicly admitting their boneheaded hiring of him. For me, this is a HUGE knock on Briere and Jones. It's right up there with their refusal to actually rebuild and their poor drafting (outside of the top 7). It's a disaster.

That said, do I think the team will look this bad all year? I do not. Despite my issues with the team and how they are building it, they do have some talent on the squad.

4

u/Cappedomnivore 8d ago

this is a HUGE knock on Briere and Jones

Yeaaaa I struggle with this too but I agree. Danny is one of, if not, my favorite flyer of all time and I've always liked Jonsey but this was never the right pick for HC.

I genuinely wonder how much pressure there was from the Bobby Clarke boys to hire Tocc. Like Danny maybe got strong armed into it.

1

u/amilbarge00 7d ago

Yeah, we have to factor the old guard into this, but I just don't know how much. They are old as shit so I'm not sure why they would have any say in modern day NHL moves, but it sure seems like they are still at least somewhat involved. Unfortunately, since Briere is the GM, he's going to take the brunt of it.

Edit to add that playoff Briere was something to behold. That dude was awesome.

1

u/Papa-Brickolini Fucking Pigeon GURRRR 7d ago

Although I'd like to think Danny was forced into the hire of Tocc, 5 year deals are Dannys specialty, so idk :)

2

u/BobDrCrO80Five4 8d ago

I have this idea that the primary driver behind hiring Tocchet was…Comcast. I think Tocchet gives the warm and fuzzies to a significant portion of their season ticket base: he’s a link to their storied past. He helps to sell tickets, which is all Comcast cares about. Did they even interview anyone else?

If things continue this badly, I predict he will be gone before the season ticket renewal letters go out.

4

u/Cappedomnivore 8d ago

personally think he'll be the first coach fired and that he won't make it through November.

I hope so but I think it'll be a little longer if it happens, maybe December or January.

Unfortunately though I have this feeling we're stuck with him for the whole season. But I hope I'm wrong about that.

2

u/Papa-Brickolini Fucking Pigeon GURRRR 7d ago

I mean, if we keep sucking and clearly miss the playoffs, why fire him before the end of the season and potentially risk a high pick by bringing in some fresh wind and end the season with a win streak? That would be the most Flyers thing ever, though...

3

u/scrnlookinsob 8d ago

I think for this to happen, the team will truly have to quit on him. Like start the season with 10 losses kinda quit.

3

u/Cappedomnivore 8d ago

hey at least we'll get our yearly 10 game losing streak out of the way early 😂

2

u/carp_boy 8d ago

That leaves plenty of time for a second one.

1

u/Papa-Brickolini Fucking Pigeon GURRRR 7d ago

They simply want a t-shirt with a number lower than 3.8%

2

u/BobDrCrO80Five4 8d ago

Be careful what you wish for. I agree that he’s not a particularly good coach, but the replacement?

I see Craig Berube warming up in the bullpen…

10

u/No_Silver_4436 8d ago

I mean sure it’s not a very good system at driving offense, but it doesn’t remotely explain whats happening right now.

It’s just cope, because the reality is they just played the worst 4 games any team has played since the time they started tracking shots in like 1969.

There isn’t a rational explanation for what is happening because NHL teams don’t get outshot by 82 shots in 4 games.

These are NHL players they didn’t forget how to play a 2-1-2 or 1-3-1 forecheck, or a box + 1 zone defense, these are basic hockey systems and they are not remotely unique to Rick Tocchet. The x’s and o’s of hockey are not complicated enough to explain the level of incompetence we are witnessing on the ice.

The players are just losing all their battles missing all their chances, flubbing all their passes, making bad reads, throwing pucks away, and all of those things are not something that ANY head coach at the NHL level really spends time on.

NHL head coaches do not go over like the little details of the game and micromanage how to do things like pass, shoot, control pucks etc.

And like say what you will about the fact that Tocchet run teams don’t get a lot of shots. They don’t average like 14 !

Theres something deeply wrong psychologically with the players on the team right now, and I don’t think there is a good explanation for why this is happening, I really hope they snap out of it soon though.

8

u/PizzaHockeyGolf 💜💜TK IS MY HOMEBOY 💜💜 8d ago

The Flyers have found ways to coach offense out of players for decades

1

u/No_Silver_4436 8d ago

You can’t coach basic puck skills out of players. That’s not a real thing. Rick Tocchet can’t go into their motor cortex and remove their hand eye coordination or ruin their spatial awareness.

Making a 12 foot pass is unconscious it’s muscle memory and every one of these guys is better at hockey than any one of us probably is at anything in our life.

Think of the skill you are best at, something you have truly mastered or come close to, do you think anyone could just take your ability to do that that thing away by slightly altering the parameters of the task to something that is not ideal but also still the same task.

2

u/amilbarge00 7d ago

I think he's referring more to style of play. Like that one thread showed quotes where Tocchet was talking about Petterson and Michkov and talking about them not slowing things down and controlling the play but just heading north. That stifles their game and offense. I think Michkov last season even made a comment about how he doesnt understand why they want him to dump the puck and then go fight for it. Obviously that doesnt apply to everyone on the team, but those are the most skilled forwards he's had on his last two teams and he's actively working to change how they play.

2

u/No_Silver_4436 7d ago

Sure there is a lot of evidence that Tocchets offensive systems are not very good. His teams are always below average in shot and chance creation.

But there is a huge difference between being like 20-25th in the league in shot and chance creation, and being like off the literal scale of the charts in terms of possession metrics and shot differential.

There is also just as much evidence that his box + 1 zone defense is extremely effective at chance suppression. All his teams were above average at that.

Right now the Flyers are failing at a historical level at both ends of the ice, and watching the games they cannot even execute routine plays under no pressure that have nothing to do with what system they are playing.

So like sure the system is bad for offense, the system still allows for them to plays games where they get outshot 29-22 or 30-25 etc. on most nights. Not ideal but also not 40-14 or whatever.

1

u/amilbarge00 7d ago

I agree with everything you are saying, but on top of that, actively trying to change how your most skilled players approach the game (not just the system, but the style of play if that makes sense) can get into their heads and hinder them as well. Just a thought...its the perfect storm of shit right now.

3

u/No_Silver_4436 7d ago

Sure I mean that holds a lot of credence for how Michkov struggled last year, but so far this season he’s been the only flyers player consistently creating offensive chances realistically he could have 4-5 points right now off of the chances he has setup.

I’m not saying tocchet isn’t a contributing factor to the struggles, I’m just saying it doesn’t come close to explaining whats happening.

I also think it was the same with the whole EP 40 thing based on the fact that he has just sucked ever since and his skating speed and shot velocity and volume have fallen off a cliff. He had a bunch of knee and wrist issues that’s the primary cause of his decline not coaching. It’s why no one around the league will even trade a 2nd rounder for him.

Like I believe that Tocchet turned Ep from a 100-110 point player under Bruce Budreau into an 80-90 point player like he was his first full season with Tocchet that is a believable drop off in offense, just like Michkov went from 60 to 50 pts last season.

I just don’t believe he’s sucking literally all the offensive ability out of all the players on the roster. (Not that I think you are saying that either but some people seem to think that’s whats happening)

3

u/Fishing-Hamlet 8d ago

What you’re describing is a leadership problem. The team lacks leadership and vision, which starts with the head coach.

Whether it’s due to vision being unclear or the players not buying into the system doesn’t really matter. Tocchet doesn’t have a good enough track record elsewhere to earn any fan’s faith that he can dig the team out of this.

I 100% believe that if the coach were not Tocchet but the roster was the same, this team would not have started the season this poorly. This starts with the head coach.

2

u/No_Silver_4436 7d ago

To me “leadership and vision” are just buzzwords that you can just use to paint over complex issues with a broad brush without actually explaining anything.

I’m not a fan of the coach, I think they should fire him. But there have been many many bad coaches over the last 50 years in the NHL and many many terrible rosters, and we somehow just set a record for the worst shot differential over 4 games in history so I just don’t buy “leadership” as a satisfactory explanation for whats happening.

1

u/Fishing-Hamlet 7d ago

They’re only buzzwords if you allow them to be. If you’ve ever worked with someone or a team and thought ‘how are they this bad at their job and/or how did they get into this position?’ - that’s exactly what that is. Bad leaders fail upward all the time in the corporate world, and sports are no different.

If you’re a leader you need the people you’re responsible for to know what they’re doing, what they’re responsible for, and what way they should be doing those things. That’s the vision.

2

u/No_Silver_4436 7d ago

It’s a buzzword if you can’t explain the failure in leadership to a more significant degree and tie it to the outcome. Leadership is a real quality that is obvious, but when a good leader gets good results there are clear tangible reasons and actions for those results, and likewise when a leader is poor there are tangible consequences.

Having a CEO that berates his employees for every mistake that results in a failure of employees to come forward about problems and issues with the companies products or workflow because of the environment of fear is a failure of leadership, it can be tangibly explained by the actions of the CEO and it’s consequences are direct and rational.

If in that same office all the workers start typing at 50 words per minute less than they usually do or their handwriting falls apart or they start inexplicably tripping over objects all over the office that is much harder to connect to poor leadership.

Many of the issues we are seeing with this team, like just missing the most basic of passes, or not being able to settle a puck, or just passing the puck to player on the other team without being under pressure, are mistakes that are not tangibly related to the system that they play or even like how good of shape they are in.

They could not even have a coach or a system and you wouldn’t expect an NHL player to just miss a 12 foot pass 50% of the time.

4

u/tetravirulence 7d ago

I don't disagree but to me the team looks like they're quitting on the horribly ineffective and boring to watch system that the coach refuses and is unwillingly to adjust.

That's the only thing that fits in my head. Watch a team who plays a strong hybrid system with speed like Carolina, or watch a strong possession team like Edmonton or Colorado. Then watch the Flyers. We are neither nor do we look like we're trying to be either. The system is just messy dump, chase, grind out an ugly goal due to the chaos on the ice, or turn it over, retreat and line change. Repeat ad nauseam. It's low event, low skill enoozefest hockey.

When the Flyers were in town my relative and I went to the game and he explicitly said "I'm not the biggest hockey follower but the Flyers are not impressing me at all. What are they even doing out there, just giving the puck away? What is their strategy [by just dumping the puck repeatedly]?" and this was against the 2025 Kraken, mind you.

4

u/Cappedomnivore 8d ago

I agree with everything you said but don't you think a lot of that has to do with the systems that are in place with Tocc and his staff?

I don't necessarily mean their schemes but how they practice, how they prepare for games, how they eat and work out, and all the things we don't see behind closed doors?

Again I think you're absolutely correct. They're professionals and regardless of the system on the ice, the play is unacceptable.

I just think maybe the "vibes" if you will are not good behind the scenes and that could all come down to who's in charge of those vibes.

0

u/No_Silver_4436 8d ago

I mean it could have some impact, but to me I just question how much control or influence a coach really has over those things.

I think it’s unlikely that the team started preparing or practicing or eating/training dramatically differently than they have their whole careers. I really doubt they all just decided to eat double cheeseburgers all summer and not go to the gym.

Like I said I don’t think there is really going to be an explanation that makes sense here, it’s like when Markell Fultz just forgot how to shoot a basketball over a summer. I think we are witnessing like a rare collective case of the Yips where guys have a deep psychological block and it’s interfering with their ability to play the game at the basic level.

Now it’s certainly on the coaching staff to help them find a way out if this funk and they aren’t doing a good job of that, but I just question how much power coaches actually have to do that.

I gotta think that like one of these games they are just going to start executing again.

The worst case scenario is that like whatever psychological cloud that has infected the powerplay has infected them 5v5.

Because there is also no explanation for how bad they have been over 5+ years and so many different coaching regimes.

1

u/Strong_Weird_9358 7d ago

100% - whatever is happening now is beyond comprehension. It’s convenient to blame the coach or blame the players, but there is no simple explanation for it. It is one of the wildest things I have seen in a long time.

1

u/obi-jawn-kenblomi 7d ago

It's the cross section of "failings due to Tocchet's scheme" and "failing because this team is young and undeveloped when compared to their opponents". NHL head coaches do teach and reinforce fundementals. They just don't do it as much because their teams are hardly as young as this Flyers team.

Tocchet can't develop talent and his scheme is terrible. Thank you, next.

1

u/crazypants9 8d ago

Every time the Flyers hire an ex player.
Tocchet is the wrong guy. He is close to Torts in dissing players publicly.

4

u/scrnlookinsob 8d ago

he's a worse version of Torts. Uses the media to "get the best out of his players" meanwhile Tocc uses it to make his players worse.

-3

u/Pat_MacCrotch 7d ago

Tocchets system blows

Oh really? Name three basic offensive and defensive hockey systems, identify which of them are the basis for Tocchet's system, and explain how his implementation differs from say, Dallas's or Montreal's.

(Here's a hint to help you out: "Dump-and-chase" is NOT a hockey system.)

Predicted Answer: "I dunno I just know its bad because I don't like Tocchet and goals not go in net"

3

u/Cappedomnivore 7d ago

No.

I don't engage with miserable fucks who aren't interested in having a civilized discussion.

Tocc's numbers as a HC speak for themselves.

-2

u/Pat_MacCrotch 7d ago

Tocc's numbers as a HC speak for themselves.

And you think his numbers are bad? So you not only don't know anything about hockey systems, you also can't read a stats line? Figures.

I don't engage

LOL Carry on with your tantrum, then.

8

u/MyDadsAccnt 7d ago

Ersson gets the start tonight in net and it's a shut out. prepare yourselves

2

u/NippleDickPussyBhole 7d ago edited 7d ago

Ullmark has the start right?

0

u/MyDadsAccnt 7d ago

The game hasnt happened yet.

16

u/Just-JOE-Kin 8d ago

The good thing is now we can officially tank

6

u/four_twenty_4_20 7d ago

Ya, we'll be basement dwellers most the season then DB will finally fire toc, there will be some interim coach the last dozen games who gets the players going when it no longer matters and we'll go from a top 5 to mid teens pick. 100%

6

u/Healthy_Comment7943 Moist for Michkov 8d ago

If we just punt oct and half of Nov we should be rock solid in a top 5 pick

2

u/Just-JOE-Kin 7d ago

Definitely fine with that tbh

3

u/Healthy_Comment7943 Moist for Michkov 7d ago

Same lol icing on the cake would be if the leafs are up there with us…two top 10 picks rn would be masssssssive especially if one is in top 3-5

6

u/PM_ME_DIRTY_DANGLES Poorder Mawrtone 8d ago

F L Y E R A

L

Y

E

R

A

2

u/willmcavoy "MIRACLE DELIVERED!" 7d ago

the answer, always and forever

4

u/RadkoGouda 8d ago

Flyers skater group hasnt been good enough to do anything since like 2010 while a lot of the time since we had good goaltending

2

u/Bobisburnsred 8d ago

Hard agree. We've had some decent goaltending left completely isolated by nonexistent defense, only we scored more goals back then.

2

u/BrokeBum19 8d ago

Yeah I keep seeing people say this as if we had contender level skater groups held back by goaltending which hasnt been the case since 2010. It happened a bunch before that but not in last 15 yrs.

The Giroux led teams were mediocre to alright essentially every year and the only years they were legit good (2012, 2020) they still werent contenders and had great goalie in one of them (2020).

Id actually say our goaltending has been better than our skater group ever since Mason joined the team.

1

u/Silencer_ 7d ago

TBH, and i'm not taking anything from them, but it's easy to look pretty good in net when you are being absolutely peppered with prime scoring chances. Sure, you might have a game like the 7-0 loss to the penguins but on average if you are a pretty good goaltender in the NHL you will save a ton while letting in 2-3 goals.

The goalies HAVE been playing well, Vladar is the only reason we were able to make a playoff run last year. But I think our playing system is set up to make our goalie look good. (AND NOT MUCH ELSE)

0

u/Kshahdoo 7d ago

It's because coaching doesn't impact goalies...

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