After the second of the Flyers’ three season-opening losses, Rick Tocchet was frank — they needed to change their practices.
Sunday was the Flyers’ first real practice opportunity since the season began, as they prepare for their first long road trip of the season. Tocchet said they focused on Xs and Os, after missed reads led to open scoring chances against Carolina.
“We had a really good defensive team last year, but right now it seems like some guys are off,” Tocchet said. “It just takes one or two guys to make a wrong read, and all of a sudden somebody’s open. We’ve got to make sure we have a base of guys that know how to handle a D dive or a D slide.”
So far, the Flyers have been outshot 122-62 across the first three games. Tocchet attributed some of those issues to allowing too many point shots and pucks on net.
The structure has improved since the 7-0 drubbing against Pittsburgh — which Tocchet said was the worst he’d seen the defense play since he arrived — but the execution is still lacking on both sides of the rink.
Because of the shortened training camp, NHL teams had just six practice opportunities and four preseason games before the start of regular season play. The Flyers, returning most of their roster from last year, still haven’t been able to sync up and find chemistry.
Tocchet spent significant time on the ice during practice with Porter Martone, Denver Barkey, and Alex Bump, all of whom earned late call-ups last year. Barkey is still out injured, but the other two are starting their first full season as lineup regulars.
“I know everyone says we have the same team, but a lot of the guys — we have a chunk of like seven or eight guys who’ve only played 20-30 games,” Tocchet said.
He hopes the road trip can be an opportunity for a new voice, as the players go out to dinner and bond without the coaches present, to get everyone on the same page.
“Sometimes you want the players to handle certain situations,” Tocchet said. “No point in me going after the game talking to the team, I think it’s up to the leaders to talk about, we got to win more battles, we got to be pissed off a little bit more, we got to be more disciplined.”
Breakaways
Barkey was on the ice for practice in a regular practice jersey and “could be an option” for the road trip, Tocchet said. Helge Grans also was a full participant in practice. Rasmus Ristolainen is still being evaluated after suffering an injury in Saturday’s loss to Carolina. He played one shift in the third period before leaving the game. The official Flyers Instagram posted a photo of Ristolainen getting on the plane for Tampa on Sunday afternoon without a visible cast.
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