{"id":140419,"date":"2026-03-17T07:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/140419\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T07:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:36:12","slug":"three-ideas-for-fixing-the-flyers-last-ranked-power-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/140419\/","title":{"rendered":"Three ideas for fixing the Flyers’ last-ranked power play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taylor Swift<\/a> thought she could fix Matt Healy. Rick Tocchet<\/a> thought he could fix the Flyers\u2019 power play.<\/p>\n

Neither was right.<\/p>\n

Sitting on a dais on the floor of what was then called the Wells Fargo Center in May at his introductory news conference, Tocchet said he knew the power play was \u201ca sore point\u201d and that he had \u201csome thoughts on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever those thoughts were, they have not worked. The power play isn\u2019t just a sore point; it\u2019s becoming an open wound.<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: Can the Flyers make the playoffs? It\u2019s an uphill climb, but here\u2019s the rundown on their chances.<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been five seasons and five coaches \u2014 Alain Vigneault, Mike Yeo, John Tortorella<\/a>, Brad Shaw, and Tocchet \u2014 since the Flyers\u2019 power play has earned any level of respectability in the NHL. In 2020-21, it finished the season at 19.2% and tied with the Montreal Canadiens for the NHL\u2019s 17th best. <\/p>\n

Entering Monday, it\u2019s hello old friend, (it\u2019s not) nice to see you once again. The Flyers\u2019 power play (15.2%) is back in the NHL\u2019s basement, the same place it ended every season between 2021 and \u201924; last season, it finished a mere 30th of 32 teams.<\/p>\n

Tocchet came in with a reputation for running top power plays as an assistant in Pittsburgh and Colorado. He brought in assistant coaches Jaroslav \u201cYogi\u201d Svejkovsk\u00fd and Jay Varady to help run the unit. It hasn\u2019t helped.<\/p>\n

Here are three suggested changes the Flyers could make to try to help ignite things.<\/p>\n

1. Play Emil Andrae<\/p>\n

This seems like a no-brainer. <\/p>\n

Tocchet doesn\u2019t want to play Andrae on the penalty kill because he\u2019s small and struggles at times defensively. Fine. But the 24-year-old Swedish blueliner\u2019s puck-moving ability was built for the man advantage.<\/p>\n

According to Natural Stat Trick, this season he has spent just 22 minutes, 43 seconds on the power play, but when he\u2019s on the ice, the Flyers have 92.68% of the shot attempts (38-3), are outshooting opponents 18-2, have 18 scoring chances to none against, and eight high-danger chances. His Corsi For percentage and expected Goals For percentage (98.52%) are the best among the Flyers who have played at least nine minutes with the man advantage. And he\u2019s been on the ice for a power-play goal by Trevor Zegras<\/a>, for which he got the primary assist.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a new phenomenon. Last season, Andrae played a little more than 55 minutes on the power play in his 42 games. He was on the ice for four goals and none against, and collected three of his seven points. How many other players scored 100% of the goals on the power play? Three, and the other two were Olle Lycksell and Andrei Kuzmenko. His expected goal share ranked 10th, but everyone above him, except Travis Sanheim<\/a>, played more power-play minutes.<\/p>\n

To further prove the point, Andrae has 10 goals for Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League in the regular season and another two in the playoffs. Seven have come on the power play.<\/p>\n

2. Simplify<\/p>\n

Tocchet spoke with The Inquirer<\/a> after he was hired and had this to say about the power play:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst thing I\u2019ve known, from my experience over the years, is giving the players too many plays. If you look for plays all the time, you lose what I call road hockey. We just beat three guys out of the corner, so why would you be thinking about a play?<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: Q&A: Danny Bri\u00e8re on Trevor Zegras\u2019 future, Jett Luchanko, and the idea of being stuck in hockey purgatory<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, it\u2019s an attack style. Now you\u2019ve got to have creativity. You\u2019ve got a guy like [Matvei] Michkov, who\u2019s obviously a very high-level offensive guy, and getting him the puck when you beat pressure. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou figure a lot of times, hopefully, he\u2019s going to make a lot of good plays out of that pressure. But when things get stagnant, it\u2019s because players look for plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

But on Saturday, after another 0-for-4 effort in a 2-1 shootout loss to Columbus, which followed a goose egg in four opportunities against Minnesota, including four of the final six minutes of a shootout win, Tocchet spoke about reading plays and how the Flyers were on the wrong side of the setup.<\/p>\n

The Flyers are officially stagnant and, by Tocchet\u2019s reasoning, it\u2019s because they\u2019re looking too much for plays. Time to just let them play.<\/p>\n

Why? The Flyers have a couple of the game\u2019s most talented offensive players in Zegras and Michkov, and as Flyers general manager Danny Bri\u00e8re<\/a> said on March 7, the optics look better overall. Yes, they are controlling the puck in the zone and sustaining pressure, but they still aren\u2019t getting shots as they continuously pass around the perimeter. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Flyers rank 12th in shot attempts (559) but 23rd in shots on goal and 20th in high-danger chances this season.<\/p>\n

Since Feb. 5, the Flyers have scored just three power-play goals across 31 opportunities \u2014 29th in the NHL (not last!). Again, they rank high in shot attempts<\/a> (82 and 14th) but only 36 have been on goal, meaning less than 50% of their attempts are getting through. But all three goals are from high-danger areas, coming on 20 shot attempts from prime spots.<\/p>\n

3. Change up the units<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to get drastic. Every team has two units but it feels like right now, the Flyers need to load up and try to establish a No. 1 power play.<\/p>\n

Right now, the units are as follows:<\/p>\n

PP1: Travis Konecny<\/a>, Christian Dvorak, Owen Tippett<\/a>, Jamie Drysdale<\/a>, and Zegras<\/p>\n

PP2: Michkov, Denver Barkey, Noah Cates<\/a>, Alex Bump<\/a>, Rasmus Ristolainen or Cam York<\/a><\/p>\n

What if PP1 looked like:<\/p>\n

Bump on the left flank, Zegras on the right flank, Konecny in the bumper, Michkov at the net-front (or the right post where he likes to hang out), and Drysdale or York at the point.<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: Jamie Drysdale has rebuilt his defensive game. Now, his immense offensive potential is starting to pop again.<\/a><\/p>\n

Konecny and Bump have each expressed desires to play in the bumper position, and, like all good power plays, they can rotate around with Konecny being a right-shot and Bump a lefty. Zegras has thrived in that right circle spot, Michkov\u2019s hands are just too good around the net, and Drysdale has started to show pop from the point.<\/p>\n

That would leave PP2 to be some variation of:<\/p>\n

Tippett left flank, Dvorak net-front, Barkey right flank, Cates bumper, and either York, Drysdale, or Andrae at the point.<\/p>\n

At this point, what is there to lose …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift thought she could fix Matt Healy. Rick Tocchet thought he could fix the Flyers\u2019 power play.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,64368],"class_list":{"0":"post-140419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-philadelphia","9":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","10":"tag-philadelphia-news","11":"tag-power-play-last-nhl-rick-tocchet-yogi-svejkovsky-emil-andrae-simplify"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}