(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Hey everybody, how you doing? Well that's good, welcome to PHL Why Flyers. My name is Bill Matts. I'm your director of fun and games on this very first day of training camp, at least the On Ice portion, and joining me today, straight from beautiful Voorhees, New Jersey. It is Philadelphia's number one hockey beat writer, Charlie O'Connor. That was the first day of school, Chuck. It wasn't bad, it was an early morning, earlier than usual, this starts around 8.30, whereas usually practices start around 10.30 at the earliest. So this is always an early start, and it's a long day. And now we got the show, but you know what? I'm amped up, I'm ready to talk some flyers hockey, so let's do it. Did they get you out there to do the skate? Thankfully no. No, they didn't make the media do it. If they did, I would not be here. I would probably be in the hospital. Well, that's the first thing I want to ask, is this came up a couple of times today for people who've never been to the training camp, and especially John Tortorello training camp. Right. What exactly is the, as we found out, the name of it yesterday, other than like torture test, the three by eight lap 300 shuttle? What exactly goes on in this drill? Well, so I broke it down in my post practice notes video that's going to be coming out in a couple of hours, so keep an eye out for that on our YouTube channel. But in short, essentially what they do is, Tortorello has a rope. This is where the rope thing. The rope thing. The rope he has had for decades, and they more or less have hooks at the end of each rope, and they extend the rope out lengthwise in the middle of the ice, and they hook into two nets. And then the players have to skate around the two nets almost in as if you're like going around in NASCAR track, getting an oval, and the way they do it is, there'll be a group of about five guys, and they'll do three laps around the nets. Whistle blows, next group of five guys goes. Generally speaking, each group gets about, I timed it, gets somewhere between two and two and a half minutes of recuperation time before they have to go out and do their next set of three laps, and they have to do eight sets of three laps. That makes more, okay, the three by eight now makes more, I thought it was going to be three sets of eight, but it's eight sets of three, and that makes more sense. Okay, and apparently it used to be six sets, or it used to be six sets of three towards society, he was going to amp it up, because I guess he's, he just enjoys torturing people, I guess. Today, they're just, they're taking better care of themselves, no one's showing up hung over everything, we can get two more reps in. It's too easy now, I had to make it harder. It's too easy, these guys, they work out too much. I want to see someone throw like, they don't dread it, so I have to make it harder. They had to make it harder, and this is where I wanted to start, because I think it started this summer with flier social media really taking a step up, and with Gritty, like, why would- - Yeah, they made a new hire, and I think there's a lot of new ideas this year, which is cool. - It's been fun. - It started this summer with the Scott Lawton and Gritty, like J.C. Penny photo shoot, and we saw yesterday, they're like putting out a shirt that benefits charity, it's very funny. But we saw the yearbook quotes yesterday, and we want to get into those earlier, 'cause there's a little later, because there's actually something in there that people were like, oh, so we'll see. But this today came out, and it's almost like a 30-30 on the rope skate, and it's very funny. I wanted to show it to people. - I needed something for them to skate around in the ice, so we put it between the nets. That's how the rope came about. (gentle music) - It's hard not to hear about it. - Yeah, it's painful. - Everyone kind of feels the same way, but inhumane. - I'm gonna find the real thing I think I'm burning. - Bring your blades out and cut it right now. - What is your least favorite part? - The skate test. - I absolutely hate the skate test, and I think everyone does. - You know, obviously you've heard it's hard, I've heard it's hard, and I'm expecting it to be really hard. - Just something that you gotta grind through, really. It's, you know, you can do it. - Putting these tests over their head makes them think about it in the summertime. That's the biggest reason for it. And you sprawl in the ice, and this stuff, that's what I like looking at, and you find out about what the athlete is about in those types of situations. Very physical, but more mental for me. - This is just, we're all doing it together, and, you know, there's no quit, and it kind of puts that standard right into camp, right away that, like, we're here together. And it's a lot of mental, too, just fighting through it. And I don't know if there's really any way to prepare for that test, but just gotta do it and grind through it. - Is it like they just won the Stanley Cup, they finished it, oh, is it just all right? There, okay, we're done with that, what's next? That's what it's about. (laughing) - That is really good work. - It's very good. - They've been doing some really funny stuff over on the Flyers Twitter, and I gotta give credit where it's due. So, the guy with the guy was blurred out. - That was an incredible touch. - With the voice distortion is absolutely freaking hilarious. So, how did, this is Jamie Drysdale's first one, it sounded like he may have struggled through this a little bit today. - He didn't have the best time. - He didn't have the best time. - He got up through it, that's the thing. Because this is something, and Scott Lawton, this is a funny little thing, because Scott Lawton, now that he has set it on the record, I feel comfortable telling the story, because it is very funny. Last year, Jordan Hall, who covers the Flyers for NBC Sports Philadelphia, great guy, he posted a video of Scott Lawton last year. I think it was like midway through the skate, really struggling after one of the reps, posted it and just said, "Scott Lawton, pushing through, post the video." Well, a lot of people on Twitter immediately looked at that and decide, well that means that Scott Lawton isn't in good shape, and they start ripping on him, and then apparently Scott Lawton has family members and friends texting him about it. It apparently got something like 60,000 views on Twitter. So essentially what happened was, when we first get into the locker room, which usually doesn't happen until about the second week, 'cause there's just so many guys in the room, everybody spread out. In the beginning of camp, we get the guys up at the podium. About two weeks in is when we actually go in the room. First time we go in the room, Lawton screams out, "Hey Jordan, thanks for making me look great "with that stupid video." Two weeks later, he'd been holding it in. And then he'd been waiting for that moment. And then today, when Jordan asks his first question to Scott Lawton at camp, before he even answers his questions, he's just like, "Well, I hope he didn't make "another video of me this year, Jordan." So now it's out there, I feel comfortable telling the story. But why I'm telling the story is, the guys who struggle, it's not necessarily, and almost always it's not the case, that they're not in shape. A lot of times what it is, it's just a number of things. One thing is sometimes guys who aren't used to it, the first couple reps, they go too hard, and then they tire themselves out because they're not used to this. And then the final five reps are incredibly difficult because they kill themselves the first three, and they burn themselves out. Sometimes you cramp up, and you cramp up, you're stuck. Like Zal you can go to tour to say, "Sorry, I can't go anymore." He's gonna look at you and then get off the ice, get off my rake. - You're a phantom now. - Yeah, you gotta push through. And I think a lot of people on Twitter when they ask the question of who struggled, they're coming at it from who isn't in shape. And that's not actually the case. So when I say that Jamie Drysdale struggled, I don't want people to take that as Jamie Drysdale didn't work out hard enough in the summer. By all accounts, he worked his tail off in the summer, just that this is his first time he's ever done this, and I just don't know if he was fully ready for quite how hard it is. And you're here towards, say, time and time again, this is your three now, I don't care about the times. - This is a mental test more than anything. I wanna see how guys react when their body just really isn't letting them, this isn't a thing you're supposed to be able to just do. That's why he's doing it to test you. And how do they react? He said, yeah, Rizzo's time wasn't great. His strides at the end were this big and we're talking Rizzo. - Rizzo, Rizzo. - Massive Rizzo, yeah. And his strides at the end, this long, but he finished. And that's what he's looking for guys to do. And that's really all it's about, is the mental test part of it, but the thing everyone really wants to know. - How did Mitch Kav and Luchenko look? - Well, Luchenko looked great. And Eric Johnson specifically noted this. - We have your tweet with the Eric Johnson quote on Jet Luchenko, and it's just very good to see, 'cause we've talked about his work ethic in the past, like during the pandemic, he built a gym and then extremely good shape. - He's a fitness freak, it seems. And Eric Johnson, you tweeted this, like along with a couple of other guys, looked like they weren't even trying during the Tortsgate, and we're flying around, and you'd said, the legend of Luchenko's physical fitness grows. That's awesome to see. - There were other guys. - This is his thing and he killed it. - There were other guys, I think, who probably Eric Johnson was this familiar with. He was like, "Oh yeah, they look great too." But Jet stood out. He's just such a fast skater, and he didn't look tight. He was skating around like it was another guy who always does really well with these skates, which might surprise some people because he's not fast, but he also is in incredibly good shape. No, Kate's always kills these. He never looks tired. He kills these skates. - I can see that. - But Jet looked fantastic. Mafe struggled a bit. He did struggle a bit. - Interesting. - Torts, apparently, the very first rep, the end of the rep, Mitch Cobb did not close out the rep to the degree that Torts wanted him to. He kind of pulled it up short, and Torts went over to him, tap my shoulder, and he was like, "Can't do that. "Got to finish out strong." And then he did. Now, he was exhausted. He looked exhausted by the end of all the reps, but he finished out the rep strong, finished out the thing, and Torterelle came away satisfied. That's what matters the most. - Yes. - What matters the most is the fight. Do you have the fight? Do you have the will to push through? Because as most of the guys say, like, look, it's exhausting. It's a physical test. But it's more mental than anything else, because they're all professional athletes. They all can do. - Yeah. - It's just, will you do it? - No, and that's, this is why John Torterelle is here. Like I say, he has the list, has it and doesn't. And this is day one of remaking that list, 'cause you know he's remaking it every single year. You know? Year one. Travis Sandheim was on the wrong side of that list. Year two, he's coming in as your number one defensement. And that's, it's a constant thing with him. And he even said in his presser, and we're gonna get to some of his pressers. Like, you know, you're one, we are subtracting. And year two, the young kids grew. And now it's year three, get even better. We like your progress, but every single guy needs to get better. And we'll get into some of that a little later. But while we're doing the, talking about the fliers, social media. And like I said, seems to have been a lot better this year, but there've been things I've heard about different promotions in Philly sports over the years. Like I remember always hearing the, the Phillies would put out like a calendar for their season ticket holders. And it would be like, well, who isn't in the calendar? They're going at the deadline this year. Like they would drop little hits. Just like, yeah, man, we're not gonna feature a Briu, 'cause we don't think he's gonna be here. The fliers put out this very funny, like your book quotes post of a bunch of the players. And it's all NHL guys, except for one, like it's all dudes who are gonna be on this team. And then Hunter McDonald is featured. - Of course, Hunter McDonald's in there. - That was Jonesy on the reset. - Is this a hit? Is this a hit that he's gonna be here? - No, I don't think so. - Okay. - I think it's, it's a hit that they like him a lot. And also, Hunter McDonald was here pretty much all summer. - He was around. - He is a very open and friendly guy. So he's somebody who would probably want to be part of something like this, because he just seems like the kind of guy where, look, let me go to this way. If Hunter McDonald ultimately proves himself to be an NHL player and like sticks it out, I think he's gonna be a very popular player. And not just because he hits and he appeals to that section of the fan base. He just seems like a genuinely good dude. And I think that's gonna come through. So I wouldn't be surprised if it might be partial because of that, because I still look at this roster and I don't see where, unless they wanna use him as like the eight, but I don't see it. - Why? - Yeah, like why not give him time in the NHL and let him master that to the degree, whatever degree he can doing what he does. - Considering what their philosophy, they tell us their philosophy is, it would be very surprising if a dude who didn't even burn a year of his ELC last year played some games with the fannoms and it was on a tryout basis. Like, and I also think the presence of Risto makes it less important to them to have Hunter McDonald. If Risto was traded, perhaps it would be more important to see you in the spring, kid. Hoping, just hopin' here. But that was like anything else, any other guys who you thought stood out one way or another in the skate, any funny comments, afterwards, before we get into the rest of this stuff. I did find it funny that, so Kootz had his struggles. He pushed through, but he had his struggles. But I did find a funny that Couturier flat out admitted that there were moments where TK was giving him a little push. - He was giving him a little push. - That was funny. And that's one of the things Tour de Relle said was like-- - Comradery. - Comradery is part of this. Like, whether it's something like, you know, TK is gonna be TK and he's gonna give him a little push 'cause that's funny. - Or it's just like teammates rallying around each other. - Yeah. - It's kind of push you to finish this thing 'cause they all, like, they're, all their legs are burning. - Yeah. - Like, Jet Luchenko might look like he's not tired, but he freakin' hits. - Yeah. - No, no one enjoys this. - No. (laughs) - They just put out a documentary, it's like, we all hate it. - Yeah. - Like, this sucks, but it's all part of the John Tour de Relle experience. And quite honestly, I am, I'm all for it. And we had a little bit more of the John Tour de Relle experience today with his opening press conference. He addressed the media and we're gonna talk about that. - Well, this was a vintage Tour de Relle press. It was really entertaining. - You can tell, as much as he says, he hates us. - Oh my gosh. - He loves it. - He didn't know about it in front of the media and talkin' hot. - Nobody loves it. - Nobody who hates the cameras is in front of the cameras that much. - Sure. - You can play a character saying, I hate the media, but you then joined the media in the year you had. Don't you just go home, be with your horses? No, you joined the media. (laughing) - It's all a big ruse. But before we get into that, I gotta take a quick second to tell you about, oh, you know I love doing the Empire reads 'cause it's classic, 1-800-588-2300 Empire today. 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All right, towards the presser, first thing we have to cover, obviously, the number one thing in Flyerland, it is Matt Vay-Michkov. Sure is, absolutely. John Tortorello's first impression of Michkov, he says he did not watch any of the practices or skates or anything. He definitely did, obviously, he did. Again, once again, yeah, he did, but he said the first time. I just wanna make that clear. Like, John Tortorello, I will never forget the very first training camp he did as coach of the Philadelphia Flyers. Whenever you ask them about a player, his answer was always, I didn't watch him, or I don't even know who he is. Of course he knows who these guys are. He doesn't want to give you any. The future of the team that you said you want to bring respectability back to is on the back of this teenager. Yeah, I watched him in the rookie game. He looked good. There's no way he hasn't watched him. That was the first time that, thank you very much, there are James Bond Flyers. The show is iconic, I agree. Like, oh yeah, I saw him in the rookie game. It's the first time I ever relayed eyes on him. Okay, John, whatever you say, bud. We'll start with that premise because, oh, why not? You got it. But he says he only watched him in the rookie game, thought he played really well, reacted well to all the ice time. I liked the comment he had because I agreed with it. The comment he had about, he got better as the game went on. The third period was his best period, it was. But it showed, he actually watched the game. Exactly, and like he said, yeah, Lappy poured the ice time on him in the third, and he reacted to it well, really liked the way he played as the game went on. So that's cool. Indeed. His first impression, he loves playing hockey. He's a hockey player. I just, I get what everyone says when they say he's a hockey player. It bothers you. But no friggin' crap. And that was really censored for our sponsors here. Obviously, he's a hockey player. He's signed to a professional hockey. He does play the sport club. I just, I get what you're saying. I get what you, it drives me nuts. Another thing. As opposed to a cricket player. Yeah, like, oh man, you know, for football players, he's doing a hell of a job out there. That's right. I would hope he's a hockey player. It's just one of those hockey cliches. They drafted him seventh overall. He's not a hockey player. I guess Jordan Milata wasn't a football player, but imagine how high he would have been taking if he was a hockey player. Another thing that's come up, and I've heard this a few times, it really sounds like he's picking up the language. Like he's able to communicate. I don't know if he's like getting everything and his sentences are perfect or everything, but like you hear me, I barely speak English. I do my best to follow you. It sounds like, it sounds like he's doing a hell of a job being able to like do this in a quick manner. So it is not a hindrance to like playing the games with his teammates when the season begins. I get the sense that the entire organization is pleasantly surprised at how, not even how quickly he's picking it up, but the degree to which he's attacking this, that he really wants to learn English. And he's not gonna be able to speak fluently, but at least not right away. But he is really working hard so that he can regularly and easily communicate with his teammates, and that really makes them happy. - We've known about the on ice work ethic and all that, and it seems as if he's applying it. And like I said, I don't care. Listen, if he comes in here and he's a superstar and never learns a word of English, I don't care. - Yeah, we'll deal. - But I do think it speaks to his overall character that he attacks everything a certain way. And this is just another one of those things. It's really cool to hear. Like we said, doesn't sound like the skate was easy for him. The way like, you know, Jet Luchenko getting the praise of he didn't even look tired. This was ridiculous. And again, a guy who, yeah, he got taken where he got taken because of the skating. That's his thing. - This is nice. - So you would hope, and the physical fitness as well, Matt Fade works really hard, but I don't think anyone's prepared for this thing. And it was a little tough for him. - Yeah. - Yeah, he was often involved in a bit. But again, I want to make it clear, and I said this at the beginning of the show, that doesn't mean he's not in shape. I think if any of us have watched the videos from the summer, this guy works out real, real hard. He trains real, real hard. I'm not concerned that he didn't work hard enough this summer because he was huffing and puffing in towards his death skate. It's just that he was huffing and puffing in towards his death skate. - It is like, it's a thing that exists to try to see guys throw up. John Tortorella just said it in the video we played, you know? - I really like serving, but sure. - Yeah, you know. I really liked this question, and I really liked towards his answer about like, what are you going to focus on teaching him? Like, Mavé Michkov, we've heard, you know, hockey IQ very high. Genius level, offensive, you know. Feel for the game. So what is it that John Tortorella, who is tasked with turning this guy into the best player he can possibly be? Danny Breyer said that yesterday. He said he's going to teach him away. He's got to teach all young players. You know, these guys are all good. They've all had the puck on their stick their entire careers 'cause they've probably been the best player everywhere they've been. So it's like, yeah, you get double shifted and you have the puck the whole time. Teach him to play away from the puck, but the part I love the most. 'Cause it's the thing that we all, all right, what's he going to do to, is he going to, we all have that, oh, these coaches are going to try to grind the fun out of him, turn him into a mucker and a grinder. He says, I'm not going to teach you, man. Like, we're not going to watch any tape on the offensive zone. I'm hoping to sit back and watch him do cool stuff. Like, it's basically what he said about Mavé in the offensive zone, and it's just everywhere else. He's going to try to turn him into a complete hockey player. And that's exciting. That means he is looking at this the right way in my mind. Like, yeah, man, I'm turning him loose offensively 'cause later in this thing, he's like, we need to freakin' score. Like, we didn't score enough and we'll get into that, but I like the question and I like to order Elle's answer on this. - I would agree. I'm still going to take it with a grain of salt in that, you know, yes. I don't think John Tortorrell is going to go up to Mitchkoff after a game and say you should have shot instead of passed on that play. He's going to let Mitchkoff do what he does in the offense. So that said, there are elements of offense that can be taken away if you are being too conservative in terms of the way you're playing away from the puck. Sure. So I'm going to keep an open mind on this, but I wasn't quite as reassured as you were by that. I'm hoping that this works out great, but I could still see a scenario where Tortorrell shackles Mitchkoff a little bit, even when he's saying, well, I'm going to let him do whatever he wants offensively, but that means, yo, you can't cheat, you can't do this, you can't do this. I ultimately think this is going to work, but I'm just saying that hearing that didn't tell me, oh, everything's going to be great. - Oh, and we've said, like, he's just going to do it to do it, to screw with, like, at some points, maybe, because he's John Tortorrell, it isn't seen. - And he has to show everyone else that this kid's not going to get special treatment. - He's not getting special treatment. Even though the GM and the president are carrying his stuff around, he's just a guy to me. That's John Tortorrell, and that's fine. But, like, coupling that with the, yeah. If the other team, like, if the opposing team is on offense with the puck in the zone and is threatening, Matt Vaymitchkoff cannot be hanging out at the red line. - I totally agree. - Just, yeah. - Cherry picking. - Yeah, I agree. - But, John Tortorrell told us last year, and we're going to get into the transition offense stuff, but, like, he changed the offense because of what this kid can do. If he's the weak side winger, and the puck is at one of those mesh points, and it's like, we think we can win a battle and he hit him with an outlet, he's going. - Then he's going to go. Now, if teams start doing what they did late in the year and play in that, like, too high safety, basically, all right, maybe we have to look at some things, and this isn't as effective, but I don't worry about that because Tortorrell told us a year ago, this is what we're doing. And it's because of this guy. - Okay. - But, of course, yeah. - Yeah, I'm just taking a wait and see about it. - Sure. - And this is going to be where someone who thinks that Tortorrell and Mitchkoff ultimately are going to click, but I'm just taking a bit of a wait and see approach in that I'm not going to take Tortor at face value here. - Okay. - Just because he's like, "Oh, I'm not going to do anything to his offense." Okay, we'll see. - We are-- - We'll see. - Are we waiting to ask Tortorrell about the Michigan for the first time he does it? Like, no one, I mean, I don't think I'm going to ask for Mitchkoff. - I know, somebody probably is. - Somebody will, I know you have a million other things that you're way more worried about. I'm just like, when we talk about shackling him offensively, like, I think you're more referring to like, all right, what if he cheats a little early and it doesn't work, is it like, you can only do it when it works, you know? Or, but I think a lot of us are like, is he going to tell him not to do the Michigan? Like, I think a lot of people are thinking that. - I don't think he will tell him not to do the Michigan. But I do think he might, if he does the Michigan and it goes bad and it leads to an odd man rush, maybe. - Maybe. - Maybe. - Maybe. - Maybe. All right, so I liked his comments on the skate test and he said, it's an effective way for me to judge where people are at and judge the camaraderie of what we're trying to do here. And I think, ultimately, like when they say, he says, I don't care about the times, it's about finishing, and like he said, they're mischievous, it's about finishing strong. Like, you don't cut that final stride short, you go all the way till the end. It doesn't matter what it looks like, don't care, just want you to finish it. - Yeah. - While this does seem like cruel and unusual punishment to many, we all know how sports are different than they were, even 10, 20 years ago. I don't hate this approach. I do kind of like pushing the guys, pushing them on day one and showing them what's expected of them. What's the general, like, consensus in the media room when it's like, Jesus, he's just beating these guys to hell or is it like, it's just kind of fun. - Well, I think if media people have a bias, it's a bias towards a story and this is a story. - It is. - Like, this is always gonna be a story because it is the most demanding day one of any NHL team. It's torts. This is torts in full torts mode. It's a big story. So there's definitely a large part of us that eats this up because it's a big story. It's a big story, it's unique. It's something that torts does that no one else quite does to this degree. I personally am not of the opinion that this is like hurting them at all. I don't, they're miserable. And, you know, they don't enjoy it in the moment. I don't think it hurts them physically overall. I don't think it has a negative effect six months down the road. The one thing I do wonder, and I think this is probably real, and the fliers probably even would acknowledge it's real, they just don't care, is that there are probably guys around the league who see things like this and say, I would never want to play for that guy, he's a lunatic. And the fliers response that would be, well, then we don't want you. But I don't think someone, like an NHL player, a good NHL player can have a great work ethic, can not be lazy, can be tough, and still look at something like this and say, yeah, I never want to play for that guy, that is insane. And I think you might be, by doing this and putting it front and center, you might be potentially closing yourself off from adding some guys who might be able to help you win down the road. I do worry about that possibility. I just think like, even if they didn't want to do it, like if you put a hundred million dollars in front of Nathan McKinnon or Sidney Crosby. - Nathan McKinnon would love this. - Exactly, he's the kind of guy who would eat this up. - Those guys are winners. Like Nathan McKinnon, Sidney Crosby, they are leaders, they are winners, they would do it. - Yeah. - If you're unwilling, I kind of agree. Like you're not willing to like leave it all out on the ice, the first day of training camp. Like it's not like this is every single practice. - You're not wrong. - He does not do this to them all year round. In fact, I have heard John Tortorello going back to Columbus being like, I think the guys are on the ice too much. I took away more, I told them like, as long as you like don't show up to the games hung over because that's why morning skates exist. Like, oh yeah, man, we need to sweat it out from the night before. We think players are more put together now. We think players take better care of themselves. They don't need to sweat it out before, you know, hours before the game. He was like, we don't need to do morning skates. Stop. Like the players wanted to keep doing him. He's like, no, it's enough. He's not trying to kill the guys year round. This is a mental day one. - It's just a mental test of day one. And then you're fine. Like if you're unwilling to do it, honestly, I agree. Like you're not a dude, I think would mesh with this organization and ultimately leave the winner. - I think that's the key thing, mesh with this organization. And I do think that something like this, this is why for years long before John Zweter-Elle became the Flyers coach, there was always the chatter of like, John Zweter-Elle just feels like someone who should be a Flyers coach because this market in particular eats this shit up. Like they love fans in general, not all, but a large portion, particularly those I would say like over the age of 45, love this kind of stuff. They love the fact that the guys are getting pushed hard. They love the idea that like, if you play for a Philly sports team, you are tougher than the average athlete. They love that idea. And John Zweter-Elle with this very much plays into it. All I'm saying is that like, I'm gonna name this guy and I don't, maybe it's possible that he would actually dominate these 'cause I know he in his prime was a very, very good skater. However, he was known to be a bit mercurial overall. I do not think Phil Kessel would want to play for John Zweter-Elle, but Phil Kessel won two Stanley Cups on it. Like it wasn't like having him on the Penguins made them not be winners. He actually helped them be winners twice. And I do wonder if like, you are closing yourself off for like from the guys who, you know, they work hard, but they just may not be this like, you know, chewing up glass intense. And you might be removing yourself from the pool of teams that could sign those guys. And maybe those are guys that could help with you over the top four years down there. That's all I'm saying. I'm just saying, I don't think that I think the idea that if you're not a Tour de Rela guy, you can't be a winner. I don't think that's true. I do think though that it is true that if you're not a Tour de Rela guy, you probably won't be popular in Philly among a lot of fans. Like I don't think Phil Kessel would have been a popular flyer. - Oh, among a lot of members of the fan base. - We beg for a player like him and then we get him and we get mad every time he misses the net. - Right. - You're like, he is the exact sort of dude we ask for and then we get him and we get mad at him. - So I do think what this does is it does weed out the types of guys who wouldn't be Philly type guys. I think it does a very good job of that. I just am out of the opinion that only Philly type guys are capable of winning championships because I got news for you. - Philly don't win a lot of championships. - No, I just like those guys, I think there's a big pool of them. - Okay. - The type of like, yes, Phil Kessel was integral. Like he honestly had a real case for a con smite in one of those two cups that they won back to back. I don't remember which, but it was one of those two. But like he's not close to a Stanley cup without a Sidney Crosby level player on his team. - And those are the types of guys. - I do think, and we're hoping that a cold ship. - We're hoping Mitch Koff is like this. I think it very much helps if you have a hyper intense crazy person at the top of the food chain because it trickles down. I do think that is true. Phil Kessel can't be your best player now. But if you've created a culture where Phil Kessel types will refuse to sign with you, then it does make it maybe a little bit tougher to get the kind of talent you need to win championships as players in like supporting roles. You know what I mean? - That's kind of where I'm going. - You just trade for them at the deadline and then they don't have to go to training camp. - Okay, there you go. - You know. Another thing I was really, really happy to hear with John Tortorelli because we, he can sometimes, and I think he does it less than maybe the perception kind of throws players under the bus a little bit every now and then. We saw it with you. - No, he never does that. Never. - I think he does it less than the perception. - That is probably true. - But he does do it. - He has been known to do it, even if it's like the Field Sandstrom thing where he then comes back and apologizes and it's like, well, you did it, but now you're feeling bad about it. It has happened before, but he was asked about the way the year ended and like the quote that he gave, like it exit interviews, like he's going to think about it and really kind of, you know, he gave a pretty good explanation for the way the year ended. The things he thinks he's at fault for, and he put it on himself very much. One, he mentioned like, yeah, the goaltending struggled, but it should have, I did that. Like, I know that I wore Sam Harrison down. - It wasn't Sam's fault. - Yeah, like that was my decision. We rolled the dice and I don't blame him for the fact he wore down. - Like the goaltending wore down and it was a risk I thought was possible and it happened. Also, the way that they were coached offensively, he said he thinks he had blinders on. The rush-based attack was working so well that he doesn't think they spent nearly enough time working on the forecheck, getting to the net. Grinding goals is what he said. Scoring goals with some grind to them. We don't score enough deflections. And that was very apparent in the later part of the season when it's like-- - Yeah, I would agree. - The rush kind of dried up a little. - He dries up a bit. Teams play tighter, everybody is fully acclimated and mastered their systems. The chemistry's there, you know, line mates have played with each other all the year so they know where everybody is in the formation. It becomes harder to get those, you know, those big plays. - Overall teams are trying harder. - Yeah. - Like, the season is a long season. There's a reason the president's trophy winner usually doesn't win the cup. Like, it's the end of the year that really matters, but he thinks it was going so well. John Tortorello thinks like the rush base attacks was working so well, and then when it dried up, they just didn't coach them up enough to score off the cycle, score off the forecheck, get those rebound goals, those second, third opportunity goals, score on deflections. And that was so freaking apparent. And he took accountability for that. That was good to see. When asked how he's gonna change it, and if he's gonna maybe switch up the styles, he said we just need to learn to play multiple ways. That was cool. That was cool. And I did like that analysis. I think it's mostly right. I think the one thing he does leave out though, notably is like not being able to score on the forecheck and around the net, it ain't the only reason why he had trouble scoring. There was also the 12% power play. That was notably left out. That was also a big part of the lack of goals, John. And you didn't mention that. Now, part of it, it was net front. They didn't really have a net front presence guy, but they didn't really get anybody who can do that. So I don't know if that problem is being fixed. But I do agree, I agree with him, that the forecheck, getting dirty goals, deflections, probably didn't happen enough. What I am curious about though, is what are you gonna do to fix it? Because it's hard. It's hard to, the teams that have been the best at playing multiple styles that I've seen in my time covering hockey. Are teams where you had one coach for a while who taught one way. Then you bring in a new coach who teaches another way. And for like one or two years, that coach teaches a more fast-paced offense. But if they have to, they can switch back to playing towards hockey, because like, I think of like the Rangers under Vigno. Vigno opened it up when he took over for torts. But part of the reason why they got to the Cup final in their first year was that, yeah, they could play open it up running on hockey. But when they needed to, it was very easy for them to recalibrate and go back to playing towards hockey. Well, I'm not saying he can't do it. I'm just saying it will be tough for torts and the coaching staff. It'll be a challenge. I think that's the best way to put it. It'll be a challenge for them to coach this team in a way where they both remain very good at the transition game, which I do think is a big part of why they were good last year. And Tour Norel confirmed today, we ain't gonna stop doing that. We wanna be good in transition, while also being above average or at least average at scoring the other way. It's just gonna be a challenge to get them to be good at two completely different types of styles of play. It will be tough. It will absolutely be tough. Charlie, how shocked were you? When John Tour de Rela mentioned PDO. Oh, it was good. That was good. He referenced like the stat that tries to quantify luck. Yes. In fairness, he called it BPO. BPO, yeah, he said something very fun. It was great. I immediately knew what he was getting at. Because the first other thing, I first thought that he was talking about shooting percentage. And then he's like, what is it called? BPO, is this dude's slightly BDO? He's like, yeah, we didn't finish nearly enough. And it's like safe percentage and goals for it. So for those of you who don't know what PDO is. PDO is actually a pretty older advanced stat. It was discovered, I use discovered in quotes because it was just a bunch of nerds like looking at things on a spreadsheet. And we're like, hey, this stat might have value. Basically what they did is they combined team shooting percentage and team save percentage. And what they found is that generally speaking, if you combine those two things. So like a 10% shooting percentage, a 90% team save percentage, generally speaking, most teams at the end of the year end up around 100. That is like the league average of those two things combined. If you have a 95 PDO over a month time, you're probably going to get better luck over the rest of the season. So it tends to be a measurement of luck. As we've learned more about the stat, it's become more nuanced because for example, if you have like, if you have Igor Shasterikin as your goalie, you're probably gonna have a PDO over 100 because your team save percentage is probably gonna be at like 92 and as long as you're shooting over 8%. And since the league average shooting percentage is something like 10, like if you're even a league average shooting team and you have Shasterikin, you're gonna have a 102. And that doesn't mean you were lucky. It just means you have a great goal Shasterik. And I think this is the way that Torz was looking at it was the Flyers did indeed have one of the lowest PDOs last year in the league. They were around 97. Now part of that obviously was the goal tending. They lost Carter Hartman way through the year. They ran Sam Harrison in the ground. But the other part of it was that they didn't finish well. They didn't score, they scored goals, but they didn't finish very effectively. They would have a lot, they would have games where they had a lot of shots. They didn't finish all of them. They did a great job of outshooting opponents, shots suppression. They put up a decent number of shots. Now again, this is where I go back to the power play thing. One thing that he didn't mention is that a big reason why teams are shooting better is because they're shooting better on the power play. And the Flyers are not because their power play is trash. But I do also agree with them that it wasn't just the power play. They could finish better overall. My hope, it actually, this is my hope on both sides, on the power play and at 5 on 5. My hope is that Mitch Kopp will have a significant impact here both in terms of getting the power play going and creating better chances for everyone, including him. And at 5 on 5, I'm thinking back to the goalie scored in the rookie game. Tourists were saying, we need to score greasy goals. We need to be getting to the places where goals are scored more, for check, around the net. My fit Mitch Kopp in that rookie game scored his goal by parking himself in a high danger area and being willing to take a hit to score. I hope that Mitch Kopp, number one, is going to score a lot of those goals this year. But number two, maybe his example will drive players to do it a little bit more. And that's one of the things that like, yes, Mitch Kopp scored, I've seen plenty of highlights of him scoring on the rush. What has always impressed me about him is his ability to fight through contacts and score around the net, especially for someone his size. Especially for someone his size. He scores plenty of goals around the net. And I do think that will be something this team can kind of count on or at least try to learn from an emulate. - I hope so. - But it was very funny towards, but also the entire quote was funny because you could tell that, you could tell that there on some level, he understands the stat has value, but on another level, he just hates the fact that he understands it because the entire quote was, finishing is a very important thing. I think we have one of the lowest, whatever you guys call it. BPO, what do you guys call it? Goals against a shooting percentage. They come up with some damn number, I don't know. They told me some numbers. We need to score. That's just like very much like, okay, this is what it means, but like what it means is that we need to score more goddamn goals. That is another one of those times where I'm like, I bet he knows it and he's pretending. (laughing) - That's another one of those things. - It's part of the shit. - I think that's part of his thing. - Well, one thing I do to like Brad Shaw, especially, but I think Rocky Thompson also do, like they follow this stuff. And from what Torts has revealed to us, he gets a lot of the analytics stuff from them. They will tell him and they will put it in hockey language so that Torts doesn't immediately like brush it aside. It's just BS analytics. And then Torts will ask more questions and find out it's actually BS analytics. They'll be like, okay, well, I liked it better the first way you explained to me. So do that. All right, before we go any further, I need to tell you about indeed. That's right, because if you need to hire, you need indeed, because we're all driven by the search for better. When it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. It's to match and to match with indeed, because if you need to hire, you need indeed. Indeed, as you're matching and hiring platform, with over 350 million global visitors monthly, according to indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. With indeed, you can ditch the busy work and use indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. And indeed, doesn't just help you hire faster. 93% of employers agree. Indeed, delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites. How do they do it? They do it by leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day. So indeed, matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences. So the more you use indeed, the better it gets for you. You've got to join the more than 3 1/2 million businesses worldwide that use indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/allcity. Just go to indeed.com/allcity right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast, indeed.com/allcity. Terms and conditions apply, need to hire, you need indeed. And while we're here, we're gonna get into an article Charlie wrote in a little bit and you all know what I think Charlie's writing. This one was great as they all are. If you want the full Charlie O'Connor experience, you gotta sign up right now at all PHLY.com to be a diehard. Not only do you get all of our flyers premium content, you get our whole superstar rosters worth of premium content plus access to the Discord, which is the, it's the PHLY Lounge. Four more saying in there, listen, we're all sickos. So it's not like, oh, this is just fun conversation. - I need to ask Bo and Zach if we can take the sickos there and re-appropriate it to flyers. Or if we have to come up with our own words. - I took it from wrestling. - I took it from Bo and Zach. - Okay. - I regularly listen to Bo and Zach's PHLY Eagles podcast. If you are an Eagles fan, you definitely should, it's great. But that was something that I think they even came up with it back in the Birds with Friends Day. - I think so. - I think it's a holdover. - Tony Khan who runs AEW, he's the son of the guy who owns the Jags, he books his company. He makes all the matches and storylines and stuff. And people are like, oh, this is kind of niche. And he's like, it's for the hardcore fans. It's for the sickos. - For the sickos. - And that's what I always stick. So the Discord, yeah, it's definitely less crazy than social media. You can have some good conversations in there, but don't be fooled. It is absolutely for the diehards. That's why we call ourselves diehards. When you get all that, you get discounts on merch and events. You get a free shirt when you sign up. So many benefits to being a diehard. Do it, allphly.com. - All right, Charlie. So we got through all that. We talked about, oh, on Sean Couturier in the press conference, in John Tortorello's press conference. I just put the one quote. I hope so. Like, that was his answer. Like, what you're seeing? Like, do you think Sean Couturier, like, he's not hurt. He can get through the season. He can kind of be that guy. He was like, hope so. And he went back to listen. I realized he had the surgery. 'Cause this was a gripe of mine with torts. Like, you knew he wasn't healthy. And you made it a point to be like, oh no, it's a healthy scratch. I was like, but, but why are we doing this to the guy? - Yeah, it's fair. - And he went back to it and said, listen, I don't think he'd want to use it as an excuse to the injury. He was telling us he wanted to play. It is what it like. He seems cautiously optimistic on Sean Couturier, but not like, oh yeah, our captain's back, man. - I think that's kind of where I'm at. - Sure. - I'm cautiously optimistic. - Sure. - But I am not ready to say that I am confident that he is going to be the same guy from the first half, except through an entire season. I can't say that with certainty. He's 31 going on 32. He's had two back surgeries. He just had a core muscle surgery. Now, he said it's minor, but most surgeries seem minor to a player. - The other hilarious quote, when talking about Sean Couturier. - Yes. - Oh shit. It looked like he was going to die pretty quickly. - Coutts apparently must have struggled indeed. - He did struggle. - In the skate. And as I said, TK pushed him a couple of times. And I'm not saying figuratively, like, oh, he chasin' down and me. No, like he actually touched him and pushed him a little bit on the back. - He came up. - TK was probably trolling a bit because he's TK. - Come on, old man. - Exactly, exactly. - Absolutely. But I'm sure Couturier was thankful for the pitch. - One less stride I gotta take. - There we go. - But I just, I feel like, and this is again, all part of the Tour de Rela experience. I feel like any other coach would be like, more complimentary, maybe. And that's just not what Tour de Rela's gonna do. - That's not gonna do that, absolutely. - But he did say I think he's ready to go. - Hope so. - Yeah, I mean. And that's where we get to. - Two shots of de Rela. - Hope so. - That's where we get to with the Kutes and Diesdale injuries. You had a tweet about both of them. I'm gonna start with Sean Couturier, like from the presser. Said it was minor. It's the second time he had the surgery. He had it like 10 years ago. Said it's a pretty common thing. But yeah, we have your, Couturier said he's confident that he'll be back to 100% for the start of the season. Brought up the fact that fans worry about the core muscle stuff after watching Drew and Go struggle to get back to it and to his form. And he said not all surgeries in that area are the same and this one was minor. - Yes. - So this is where I am going to like, I will say I believe the core muscle injury was a hindrance to him. 'Cause he said it was about December when it happened and he was up and down and it just became really uncomfortable. I think that was a hindrance, but I'm not gonna say it was the reason. - Sure. - I'm going to, I've brought this up before. But yeah, the injury definitely played a part. He has not played a full season due to either injury or pandemic, just shortening the season. They weren't 82 games since 2018, 19. That is a long, I realized like time is both long and short. Like that seems like it was yesterday and also a decade ago. That was a long freaking time ago. He was in his mid 20s. - That actually does feel like a long time ago to me. - 18, 19 is the year pre pandemic entirely. Like he was in his mid 20s then. Like he just said he's gonna turn what 32 in December? It's been a while since he's played a long season. I think combining those two things, it was like, yeah, he was never gonna finish this year strong. There was just no way. He has no prior conditioning to it. And now his stomach hurts. Not to downplay, just me, like the core muscle area. It's the core. It's connected to everything. It's in pain. He was never going to be able to finish the season strong when you combine those two things. - Probably. - That is the hope. - That's the hope. - We now get to Drysdale, who did not downplay the, who did not downplay the surgery you even had. - Not even a little bit. - Like Koot said, again, two weeks, I was back on the ice, feeling fine. - Well, what he said was that in two weeks, he felt like he'd get back on the ice. He still had to sit out because they were like, you don't want to re-injure the thing. But he said, I felt good enough to do. - Yeah, in two weeks. - Drysdale, not quite the same diagnosis, like this took a while. It was more of a major thing. - Seems like he had a pretty extensive rehab of this surgery that he's cleared now. He's 100%. He went through the skate test, but this was not a minor cleanup like the Wake Attorney presented it. This was something significantly more serious. And in fairness, the negative of this is that it has you wonder, uh-oh, is he, it's going to take him some time to get fully back to 100% even when the season starts. That's the negative. The positive of it is, if this was really that serious, it does make us very much reassess what we saw from January through the end of the year. - Yeah. - 'Cause this guy was, the entire game is based on skating and he couldn't skate. - Yeah, that's like those first couple of games when he looked really fast and strong. - Probably on adrenaline. - He's flying on adrenaline, man. New team, he wants to, he wants to show out. And then it's just like, no, I was never healthy last year. And that's okay. Now the question is, can you stay healthy for the majority of the 82 game season? But I'm willing to kind of do what the Flyers are doing and going clean slate. - Clean slate. - Yeah. - And there are still concerns, they're just different than the ones I saw last year. - Apparently I believe Jason Martinez tweeted this out. He said, that he interviewed Drysdale after Drysdale's thing because as the, he's like the Flyers podcast host person. So he gets these guys one-on-one after we get them in a group setting and Drysdale apparently told him, I think he's up to like 196. So he has put significant weight on. Hopefully I would assume it's muscle. He certainly doesn't look pudgy. It looks like he's fit and cut. So that hopefully will help him avoid injury. He won't be a slight, maybe. - Okay, maybe. - I'm fine with that. Torts in his press conference named some guys who need to take steps. Like where year one was subtraction, year two, developing the kids year three time forever and to get even better. And he said, like, we have no money, no help is coming via free agency. This is our freaking group. And I was really happy to hear that. And he named Forster, he named York. And there was one other, Tippet. That was the third guy he named. And then he said there's others. - And there's others, yeah. It was just, he called them out by name and we all very much agree. And in your article, you wrote like, yeah man, Brank and Forster, like these guys, that's all part of it. If they get better, this team could make up the perceived talent gap between last year and this year. But all those guys, very important to this thing. Outside of Mishkov, or drives down on Shonkatoria, the two most important guys this year. Figuring out what the hell they are, or at least if they can be part of this thing. Like if Katoria is or isn't at least a decent, defensive, middle six center. And if drives down is or isn't at least like a dude who can produce some points for you and get through an 82 game season. If they are, or aren't those things, or like the most important things in my mind right now. - I'm gonna take a little bit of a different approach to this, because I think honestly, if we're just talking about this year, I think Sam Harrison is probably more important than at least drives down. Okay. Maybe Shonkatoria. However, I do think that aside from Mishkov, those two guys, Katoria and Drizail, may be the most important developments for the long term. For two different races. Drizail is the guy they got for Katorgota. You know, Katorgota and Mishkov, they were supposed to be the two blue chip young guys, you turned Gota into Drizail. That means now Drizail has to be one of those blue chip guys and you need to at least see something to have you think he could get to that point. Doesn't have to be this year, but maybe at some point down the road. Katoria, it's a different reason. Because if Katoria just sticks, it's going to make this exponentially harder for them to turn the corner given the degree of cap space he's taking up. Yeah, like I don't need him. I can deal with Shonkatoria being a bit overpaid. I can deal with him, you know, being a Middlesic center who's good defensively and pops in 40, 45 points a year. If he's a 20 point guy, getting nearly eight mil a year until the end of the decade, that is real hard to build around. Yeah, no, my, and before we go any further, I want to thank all of our diehards. We couldn't do what we do here at PHLY without you. If you're not a diehard, I already told you, man. Go to allphly.com, sign up. What are you doing? Yeah, we'll get to your State of the Flyers article tomorrow 'cause I really liked it and I want to dedicate enough time to it. So let's hit the super chats. Super chats. Little super chats today, first one from Matt Fred. (laughing) Really convenient for me that you guys are live during 4.20 now. Not convenient for me, Fred, but I'm happy. I'm happy that we can appease you. I have been told, and I really do not partake, but I've been told it's a very nice time. It's, it's pretty good. Yeah, it can. This is the one I can never, what does this say, Charlie? Is this like a thing? He said, "Bill, it's W. Burro goal." W, oh, it's right there. He actually told me how to pronounce it. Bill, it's W. Burro goal. I should have started reading it before I... It's 4.20 somewhere. That's really not how time zones work. (laughing) Sorry if I missed this. Any idea what Torx said to Maffee Mitchkov during the Skate for Encouragement? Did he seem to respond well? No, John Twitter all didn't say. What he said. He didn't repeat the exact words. He said to Maffee Mitchkov. But, apparently it worked because he didn't cut any of the further reps short. And Torterrel came way satisfied with his effort the rest of the way. Yeah, it seemed like he was like, "Listen, I went over and said something "and then it was all good." Yeah. That's all we can ask for between these two of... We're hoping it stays that way. Sure. We know it's not going to. There's gonna be something more than that. But for now, I will absolutely take that for day one. And Charlie, I think this is a pretty good show for day one. I would say so. That is all the time we have for you on PHLY Flyer. So, they thank you all for listening. Thank you for hanging out. If you haven't already, you gotta hit that subscribe button. Just follow, what am I talking? YouTube. Follow us right here thing. Follow us right here on YouTube. Make sure you set that reminder bell so you never miss a live show. We will be back tomorrow at four o'clock. And I'm told Kelly Hinkle will be joining us. So, we all have that to look forward to. No longer F around Fridays. No longer F around Fridays, man. It's season. We are in season. We have another show coming up after Friday. We have a pre and post game for Sunday. Okay. So, it's here, man. It's here. All right, follow us on Twitter at PHLY_Flyers and follow the podcast wherever you get those. Just search PHLY_Flyers. That'll do it. My name's Bill Matts. That's Charlie O'Connor. 'Til tomorrow. You stay loose and sexy, Philly. (upbeat music) ♪ Y'all sitting like the mayor ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
