said on Friday afternoon<\/a>, Philadelphia\u2019s youth have to turn the other cheek without backing down. It\u2019s a very fine line, but one they\u2019ll have to navigate to succeed in this opening round. Tocchet pointed to the 6-3 loss to Detroit on April 9 as a bit of an eye-opener for the club by taking needless, selfish penalties. If Philadelphia is half as undisciplined in any game this series as they were against the Red Wings on that night, the series will be short. And the summer will be long.<\/p>\n\u201cI think actually to be honest with you the Detroit game gave us a little dose of (being) undisciplined in a high stakes game,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cWe were undisciplined, we gave them power plays when we shouldn\u2019t have, getting into scrums, ripping helmets off, things like that. I\u2019m not saying we deserved the penalties, or things like that. I\u2019m not blaming the players. But sometimes you\u2019re going to have to take a punch in the mouth. You can\u2019t get frustrated, and you\u2019re going to have to walk the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philadelphia had some ups and downs in terms of discipline all season, but appeared to have turned the other cheek most of the time down the stretch. Six of their final 12 games saw the Flyers take two or fewer penalties per game. Granted, there will be some outliers from time to time. Tocchet is just hoping there are no such games the next 10 days to two weeks. <\/p>\n
On the other hand, he realizes not taking penalties doesn\u2019t necessarily mean cowering or being bullied by a club whose players have delivered their share of cheap shots over their careers, Malkin with far too may to list here. The Penguin winger\u2019s stick to the head of Rasmus Dahlin earlier this season, which resulted in a five-game suspension, brought back memories of earlier antics.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I\u2019m not saying back off, I\u2019m not saying we don\u2019t protect that crease at both ends,\u201d the coach said. \u201cHold your ground, look them in the eye, I\u2019m all for that. But the scrum stuff for me, I\u2019m not a big scrum guy. I mean I used to back in the day, but it was more for intimidation. You can\u2019t intimidate much now because the refs now, they\u2019re not going to look. They\u2019re just going to pick a guy out, and we don\u2019t want to be that guy because it happened in Detroit. I think that\u2019s a lesson we learned when we played Detroit. I hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tocchet wants the youngsters to play within themselves<\/p>\n
Another topic discussed Friday was how some rookies or younger players believe the playoffs means changing your game or trying to do too much. It\u2019s that thought process which often leaves those same players frustrated and ineffective at the end of each game. Tocchet said while the Penguins obviously have much more experience, he\u2019s hoping the Flyers don\u2019t change their style or gameplan just because every shift has more weight to it this time of year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean that was one of my messages yesterday, whoever you are, be that guy,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t change because the stakes are higher. I mean they\u2019ve got, what, 1100 games of (playoff experience), we\u2019ve got about 200. So do we have to change because of that? No. We\u2019ve been playing playoff games for a month now, a lot of high stake games, but I haven\u2019t really see the team change in terms of the personalities. They\u2019re still hooting and hollering and having fun in the room before the game. I think it\u2019s important for me and the coaching staff to relax these guys before the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tocchet also said he looks at each player as an individual, so one approach towards a certain player might not work as well when conversing with another Flyer. He believes he can sense when some have a few more butterflies in their stomachs than other.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell that some guys are going to have that nervous energy, so I think we\u2019re going to have to help them more because of the experience,\u201d he said. \u201cBut my only message to them is be who you are. Have some fun with it. Obviously the focus level and the details are higher, I get that. But as a person, be the same guy you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a big fan of sitting a guy down and talking to him for an half hour like a father-son speech,\u201d Tocchet said later to a follow-up question on the same topic. \u201cIt\u2019s more like grabbing a coffee, \u2018Hey, come here.\u2019 And it\u2019s a couple of minutes. I find younger players like it better. I think the retention value is better. So there\u2019s more quality and in less time. And it seems that they preach it to each other. That\u2019s what I feel among the young guys, they\u2019re talking to each other., which is nice as a coach when you have a young group that\u2019s doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The youngsters surprised Tocchet this season<\/p>\n
Without calling out any particular player, Tocchet said the youngsters who were added to the club this season surprised him in more ways than one. The discussion about injecting some youth into the lineup between Tocchet, Flyers general manager Danny Briere, and President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones happened throughout the season. But it\u2019s clear now the likes of Denver Barkey, Alex Bump, and most recently Porter Martone exceeded expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t remember how many months ago but I was talking to Danny and Jonesy, we were talking,\u201d Tocchet recalled. \u201cI said, it didn\u2019t even mind what place we were in \u2014 even if you\u2019re in first place, it doesn\u2019t matter \u2014 I don\u2019t believe that they got to stay down and marinate the whole time. It\u2019s okay for them to come for a game or two, and go through a practice or go through a game. You know, what does it take? They go back and say, \u2018Man I got to do something better, I got to step up, discipline or whatever it is.\u2019 I think that\u2019s important. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut when they came up, I was like, \u2018Hey these guys are good little players, good players.\u2019 And then they stayed up. I think we always had a plan for them to get in a game or two, I didn\u2019t think all of these guys were going to stay. I wouldn\u2019t have said that no.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Bump having nine points in 17 games, Barkey with 17 points in just over half a season (43 games), and Martone with 10 points in nine games, it\u2019s clearly their contributions and impact didn\u2019t go unnoticed. The hope is those players along with the likes of Michkov, Tyson Foerster, and Trevor Zegras, continue to make positive impacts. The youth are going to have to roll with the punches, or simply take a few, to get under Pittsburgh\u2019s skin without crossing that very fine line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As has been well established, the Flyers have drastically less playoff experience collectively than their state rivals in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-593693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}