Flyers’ John Tortorella addresses Emil Andrae’s growing pains: ‘I want him to respect the league’

John Tortorella wants Emil Andrae to have swagger.

But not any kind of swagger. He wants the defenseman to have a controlled swagger.

“I don’t think he’s worried about making mistakes. That’s what I like about him. I don’t think he worries about that. I think if he makes Play A and it doesn’t work, he’s going to go back to Play A again, if it’s there again, which I think is really good,” the Flyers coach said Friday.

“[But] I want him to respect the league and when I say respect the league, I want him to understand that there’s a process for him to come into this league. And respect is a big part of it. You can’t do some things sometimes. You’ve got to wait your turn to try those certain plays or think you can do that.”

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Tortorella didn’t want to name specific plays but thinks it’s important the 23-year-old blueliner takes into account the situation, whom he is facing, and the momentum of games. He wants to instill in him that when playing in the NHL sometimes you need to chip the puck out and not always make a fancy play.

“I think he’s going through a learning process of making mistakes and thinking he can do certain things that he can’t right now, and that’s respecting the league,” Tortorella added. “I think young players, especially with the athletes nowadays, I don’t think they respect the National Hockey League. I think they’ve been brought up, they’ve been coddled, they’ve been told, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ And they just have the entourage around them that they think they’re ready to do it right now.

“I think he has to go through a process of learning, through some mistakes, and find out what he can and cannot do.”

One of the last cuts at training camp, Andrae wanted to make sure he was the Flyers’ first call-up, and he was when Nick Seeler couldn’t start the season because of injury. Andrae went back to Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League when Seeler was healthy but quickly came back to Philly when Cam York injured his shoulder in October.

Andrae was sent down in December after being with the club for two months — he did miss some time with injury too — and many were shocked. But not Tortorella, who has always been tough on his defensemen. It has followed him from team to team. At the time he said, “No, it’s a no-brainer. It’s gotten too rich,” before adding that it wasn’t a complicated decision.

“As the coach of the team, there were so many struggles going on that we were hurting him,” Tortorella reflected Friday. “[He] had some good games but having three, four, five good games doesn’t allow you to think you’ve arrived.

“See, that’s the fine line. This is a conversation that I think is one of the most interesting ones with athletes, is arriving or not arriving? You don’t arrive by just playing a couple of good weeks. You arrive playing a couple of good years, especially at that position, and that’s what these young athletes don’t understand, especially at that position.”

Andrae was recalled in February for a few games from the Phantoms, and then again after Erik Johnson was traded at the deadline, and Flyers general manager Danny Brière said Andrae would be here the rest of the season. There were no guarantees that he would play but with Rasmus Ristolainen now out day-to-day with an upper-body injury, he’ll become a regular.

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The 23-year-old Swede has played in 27 games this season, potting six points (one goal, five assists) and averaging 18 minutes, 42 seconds of ice time. He is one of five players who has played at least 20 games this season for the Flyers with a positive plus-minus (plus-2)

“I think I’ve been doing better since I’ve been called up,” he said. “After every game, I feel like I’ve been getting more comfortable. I think the first game was a little so-so from my side of it. I think when you play in the AHL, you create a couple of habits that work down there but don’t work up here. And I just [have to] try to figure out where it is, and just try and get back to where I was when I was called up in the beginning.”

According to Natural Stat Trick, when Andrae is on the ice this season during five-on-five action, the Flyers have 52.44% more shot attempts than their opponents; it is No. 1 among the team’s defensemen. Among all skaters who have played in at least 15 games for the Orange and Black, he leads the way in goals for percentage (56.67%) and expected goals for percentage (58.43%). But since his recall a week ago, his numbers have not been as good (42.35 CF%) and he has been on the ice for one goal by the Flyers at five-on-five.

The Flyers bench boss knows Andrae is a puck mover and a play driver. However, the one thing Tortorella wants to see in the young defenseman is similar to what Jamie Drysdale has vastly improved on lately: going with his first decision. He thinks it will quicken his game and get him to play faster in the speedy NHL.

“As a D-man you need to be quick out there, both on your feet and in decision-making,” Andrae said. “So that’s what [I had] been trying to focus on when I was down there in Lehigh and, obviously when I come up here. I am that kind of player, and that’s what I’ve been trying to focus on. So, I took a big step in a good direction last game, and I think I can just build on that further on here.”

Forward Garnet Hathaway returned to practice in a non-contact jersey and tinted visor after suffering an upper-body injury against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Feb. 27. Hathaway, who had been skating a little on his own recently, was injured on a blindsided hit. “We’ve missed him,” Tortorella said. “Hath has been a mostly third-, fourth-line guy for us, but in some of the things that have gone [on] with the team, people being moved out of here puts even more of a little bit of a light there how important it is to our team.”