Flyers coach John Tortorella finds plenty for his team to work on following film study

The Flyers have “no chance” if they don’t defend properly, Flyers coach John Tortorella said. And after watching game film from Wednesday’s loss to the Florida Panthers, Tortorella has come to the conclusion that they aren’t.

“I thought we played better after the game — until I watched the tape,” Tortorella said. “We’re not a hard enough team. And we certainly weren’t hard enough against Florida the other night.”

» READ MORE: Flyers embracing the ‘ugly’ as belief in the process continues to grow under John Tortorella

While there were some positives, there also were many moments Tortorella said were “just awful.” The Flyers had way too many turnovers. They weren’t shooting when the opportunity presented itself. They played lateral rather than playing north. They let teams play out of the corners. But the biggest thing was that lack of battle.

“I don’t think we played very hard, and I think that showed up in video,” Justin Braun said. “We need to end plays and play harder, play heavier, especially in our zone. And when we get in our zone — don’t just give it back to them.”

There’s no area of the game that the Flyers are ahead on, Tortorella said. The brightest spot four games in is the resiliency. In addition to trying to continue to teach systems, the new coaching staff is trying to break old habits and instill new ones, a process that takes time. In a game that moves so quickly, players may understand what they’re supposed to do, but their instincts make them do the opposite.

“I don’t think you find out who you are as a team until you get into late November, early December,” Tortorella said. “I don’t want to paint a bleak picture.”

Right now, the power play has been helping the Flyers hang in games. Ranked 13th in the league for power play percentage, the man-advantage unit has had the complete opposite results of the short-handed unit.

With a kill percentage of 78.6 percent, the Flyers’ penalty kill is 18th in the league. The unit is “disjointed” right now, Tortorella said.

“One guy goes, and the other guy watches,” Tortorella said. “Penalty killing, you need to be moving in unison.”

» READ MORE: Travis Konecny already gaining coach John Tortorella’s trust

The Flyers need to pressure further up the ice, and they really have to win the 50-50 battles. Travis Sanheim said there’s also been an emphasis on blocking shots, disrupting breakouts, and creating confusion. It also would help if they weren’t giving up over three power play opportunities a game and spending almost 12 minutes a night in the penalty box.

“It’s something that we’ve talked about, being a little bit more disciplined,” Sanheim said. “There’s good penalties to take and ones you can kill off. I think it’s the bad ones, the offensive zone stick infractions and ones that just aren’t good penalties, they’re a lot tougher to kill.”

During the Flyers’ final optional morning skate of their three-game road trip, all three injured players joined their teammates for the first time. Patrick Brown and Owen Tippett were in noncontact jerseys, but Rasmus Ristolainen was not. He is still not ready to play, though. ... Carter Hart was the first goalie off the ice, indicating he probably will get the start against the Nashville Predators. ... Lukáš Sedlák, who the Flyers claimed off waivers Wednesday, did not participate in morning skate but will make his Flyers debut Saturday.