Q&A: John Tortorella talks coaching Matvei Michkov, balancing winning and development, and more
While Tortorella says the goal is to make the playoffs, he knows there are other factors like player development that are equally important.
If last season wasn’t enough of a tortuous rollercoaster for Flyers fans, the team has picked up right where it left off so far in 2024-25.
From an alarming 1-5-1 start to a blistering 8-2-2 stretch in mid-November to a rough December defined by woeful goaltending, the Flyers have been a model of inconsistency through 44 games. On the bright side, the Flyers (19-20-5) are still right in the playoff mix, sitting just three points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets, who they play Tuesday night, for the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
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So where does the team stand both in terms of this season and the future? The Inquirer recently caught up with head coach John Tortorella for a two-part interview that touches on the team’s playoff hopes, Matvei Michkov’s development, and much more.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: How would you evaluate where the team is right now just past the midway point?
A: I think it’s been a little uneven. The winning and losing, the style of play, and our consistency of play have been uneven. I don’t think we’re as far off as, I guess, a lot of people around us think we are. My biggest concern coming into this year was — and what happened to us towards the end of last year — I think it all evolved around where our goaltending situation was going to be. …
There are a number of really good things that we’re evaluating that have really come along. I’m not going to name names, but a number of players that we’re evaluating have shown us some really good stuff. On the other hand, there are others that we’re still evaluating that I think a lot of people think are locks, but they really aren’t. We still have 40 or so games left here, we’ve got to continue evaluating when we’re trying to win. Winning is important … but evaluating is just as important, and sometimes even more important in the situation we’re in and where we’re at in our rebuild.
Q: So what does progress look like at the end of the year? Is it winning? Is it player development? What do you hope to see at the end of the year?
A: Now I can sit here, and [say like] everybody says we want to win a Stanley Cup, and our goal is to make the playoffs. [But] I’d be lying to you. Because [yes] we want to make the playoffs, but we’ve got some other things we have to worry about because I think we’ve been very transparent about where we’re at in this organization. So the evaluation process is probably the number one thing on my mind. But I also am a coach of a hockey team of men that wants to win, and a coaching staff that wants to win, and we do everything we possibly can each and every night to do that. There’s going to be some subtractions. There still have to be more subtractions as we keep building here. So, good stuff, bad stuff, is he going to be part of it? Those are all things that are still going on with our organization.
Q: How do you balance the development of players with taking risks but also playing foundational hockey and being within the structure?
A: What we’re trying to do here with our style, I want that risk-taking part of our foundation. … We want our players to take a chance because that’s where the game’s gone to, that’s where our style has gone to. Our style is different than the first year. First year I came in, I just watched the tape and what the team was before I took over, we had to defend better and we spent that whole year doing that. Now we’re trying to incorporate what the style of play for the Philadelphia Flyers is going to be. And it’s not just defending. It is stretching, it is taking off, it is taking a chance, it is making plays.
The catch is in development, and Michkov is a perfect example here — it just happened the other night in Anaheim — as we’re still teaching him a little bit of defensive awareness. He can’t always go to his strength as far as taking off and thinking about offense. He still has to meet us and his teammates and the organization in being taught defensive awareness.
Q: You’ve talked often about how the players have changed over the years since you first got into coaching. Have you changed?
A: I think I’ve made major changes in just what we’re talking about here, in not letting my quick emotions make stupid decisions. I still make bad decisions. It is a game of mistakes for coaches, too. I make them every night, probably every day, as we’re going through this here. But I do think we have to evolve as coaches, because it’s not our game, it’s the players’ game.
I think my listening skills are much better [now] but you’re not getting me down the road where it’s totally taken over. … I think it’s important to empower players, these types of players, the players that are in sports now. I think that’s part of our job is to empower them. But you can’t let them go too far away with that empowerment, or it’s just human nature that they’ll forget they have a responsibility to hold themselves accountable too. And I’ve got to walk that fine line with them. So I continue to try to evolve. I continue to try to get better as I go through some mistakes I make.
Q: How would you evaluate where the team is right now just past the midway point?
A: I think it’s been a little uneven. The winning and losing, the style of play, and our consistency of play have been uneven. I don’t think we’re as far off as, I guess, a lot of people around us think we are. My biggest concern coming into this year was — and what happened to us towards the end of last year — I think it all evolved around where our goaltending situation was going to be.
When we lose Carter [Hart] last year, we hung in there. But, eventually, that is such an important position — that’s not why we totally faltered — but that was my biggest worry this year, is where are we with our goaltending? When we lose Carter, and everything’s force-fed to [Sam Ersson], because we’re still evaluating Erss to this day and we’re still evaluating a couple of guys coming from Russia, really evaluating there too with more goaltenders in the pipeline in our organization. That was a position that controls a lot of how outcomes in a season and within games [work]. I think we fought along through the position, it struggled really badly and then I thought it really turned. When Erss got hurt, [Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov] played really well, found a way, and gave us some traction.
There are a number of really good things that we’re evaluating that have really come along. I’m not going to name names, but a number of players that we’re evaluating have shown us some really good stuff. On the other hand, there are others that we’re still evaluating that I think a lot of people think are locks, but they really aren’t. We still have 40 or so games left here, we’ve got to continue evaluating when we’re trying to win. Winning is important … but evaluating is just as important, and sometimes even more important in the situation we’re in and where we’re at in our rebuild.
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Q: So what does progress look like at the end of the year? Is it winning? Is it player development? What do you hope to see at the end of the year?
A: I’m not going to predict. I don’t even get into that as far as where we’re going to end up and playoffs — and everybody’s talking about playoffs — I don’t think that. I just don’t get too far ahead. I think of each and every game but there’s no question that the rebuilding and the evaluation of players are really on my mind. And I believe, in conversations we’re all on the same page with Dan [Hilferty] right on through the coaching staff, that’s a really important part of where we’re at here and now.
Now I can sit here, and [say like] everybody says we want to win a Stanley Cup, and our goal is to make the playoffs. [But] I’d be lying to you. Because [yes] we want to make the playoffs, but we’ve got some other things we have to worry about because I think we’ve been very transparent about where we’re at in this organization. So the evaluation process is probably the number one thing on my mind. But I also am a coach of a hockey team of men that wants to win, and a coaching staff that wants to win, and we do everything we possibly can each and every night to do that. There’s going to be some subtractions. There still have to be more subtractions as we keep building here. So, good stuff, bad stuff, is he going to be part of it? Those are all things that are still going on with our organization.
Q: How do you balance the development of players with taking risks but also playing foundational hockey and being within the structure?
A: What we’re trying to do here with our style, I want that risk-taking part of our foundation. … We want our players to take a chance because that’s where the game’s gone to, that’s where our style has gone to. Our style is different than the first year. First year I came in, I just watched the tape and what the team was before I took over, we had to defend better and we spent that whole year doing that. Now we’re trying to incorporate what the style of play for the Philadelphia Flyers is going to be. And it’s not just defending. It is stretching, it is taking off, it is taking a chance, it is making plays.
The catch is in development, and Michkov is a perfect example here — it just happened the other night in Anaheim — as we’re still teaching him a little bit of defensive awareness. He can’t always go to his strength as far as taking off and thinking about offense. He still has to meet us and his teammates and the organization in being taught defensive awareness.
Now, when it comes to the development of a player, and it comes to winning, Anaheim’s the perfect game to talk about. Third period [when he didn’t play], it’s not punitive on Mich, but I felt we have a game here we have a chance to win and it’s very close, and a mistake can change the course of a win or a loss. Mich isn’t there yet as far as his defensive awareness and the teaching that we’re going through with him. And he shouldn’t be, because we’re going very slowly with him. So I don’t play him. We end up winning the game. He doesn’t play. But I think it turns into — because I get so many different things, texted to me or emailed — it turns into a big deal. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I guess that’s the way I’ll answer your question. That’s developing vs. winning. I got to juggle that too because I got 19 other players that aren’t in that situation as Mich is in as a young, 19-, 20-year-old kid going through the process. They want to win too. So I got to juggle that. So that goes on every game as far as we’re going through this process in rebuilding.
Q: There have been times when a player makes a mistake and then they sit. Do you ever feel like players are maybe afraid to make mistakes because they are worried they’ll sit?
A: No, because we’ve had that. See a lot of people, I know that’s the book, right, that you make a mistake and you’re sat by Tortorella. We have constant discussions about this. No one sits on this team because of a mistake. It just doesn’t happen. And people want to go that way because they want to pile on, they just want something to come about with this, with all your stuff, social media, and the [stuff] like that, and I’m fine with that. It’s not a big deal for me, and certainly I’m not running down people who want to report on this and make their opinions, that’s their call. But they don’t have the right information because they’re not in our meetings. They’re not in my discussions with the players. That’s talked about all the time.
Morgan Frost, what we’ve gone through, he understands that when he is sat it’s not because of one mistake. It’s when I see a trend. Are you listening? Are you working at this and having a little bit of a concentration on it? If you don’t, then I have to go a different direction. So that all comes into this. Media and social media can’t understand that, and they shouldn’t understand that, because they’re not in the conversations that I have with our players. So yeah, there’s no, you sit right away. There’s a whole process. that goes through that. That’s the last thing I want to do, is bench a player.
Q: You’ve talked often about how the players have changed over the years since you first got into coaching. Have you changed?
A: I think I’ve made major changes in just what we’re talking about here, in not letting my quick emotions make stupid decisions. I still make bad decisions. It is a game of mistakes for coaches, too. I make them every night, probably every day, as we’re going through this here. But I do think we have to evolve as coaches, because it’s not our game, it’s the players’ game.
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I think my listening skills are much better [now] but you’re not getting me down the road where it’s totally taken over. … I think it’s important to empower players, these types of players, the players that are in sports now. I think that’s part of our job is to empower them. But you can’t let them go too far away with that empowerment, or it’s just human nature that they’ll forget they have a responsibility to hold themselves accountable too. And I’ve got to walk that fine line with them. So I continue to try to evolve. I continue to try to get better as I go through some mistakes I make.
Q: So in the same vein, do you step back every now and look at how you coached now vs. back then?
A: When I talk to young coaches now and tell them what I was doing at that time … some of the stuff, I couldn’t believe I was doing it. But the athletes were different too, and the coaching position was different. A lot of things have changed. When I talk to young coaches, I try to learn from them. A lot of coaches ask me questions, and they’re trying to learn from me, but I think I get more learning and a better understanding from them because they’re part of this generation of athletes, the young guys, the young coaches I’ve talked with in the league here. So I think it’s so important for a coach to never stop listening and trying to learn, and that’s where I’m trying to be better because I think my convictions and my emotions are a big part of what I think the platform of my coaching, and I think it’s some of the success of my coaching, but I also think it hinders me as a coach, too.