addressed on Wednesday during his year-end exit interview<\/a>, realizing Philadelphia don\u2019t quite have that generational game-breaker in their lineup. At least not yet.<\/p>\n\u201cWell how do you score right?\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cThat\u2019s one thing. We don\u2019t have Connor McDavid. We don\u2019t have Nathan McKinnon. Or Makar. So, you have to think of other ways to score as a team. Puck possession we talked about. We\u2019ve got to be a better wall team. I think that\u2019s something. Corner work and wall work is a very underrated thing when it comes to hockey. If you look at the teams that go far, you watch their inside game, that\u2019s something we have to improve on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burying chances and wall work needs to improve<\/p>\n
Philadelphia had just four guys who scored 20 or more goals, so they didn\u2019t quite have any real snipers outside of Owen Tippett. Of course, Tyson Foerster\u2019s lengthy injury was a setback as the winger had 10 goals prior to his Dec. 1 exit for roughly four months. Needless to say, the Flyers often scrounged for whatever goals they could come up with, resulting in a scoring-by-committee approach more than relying on one or two top-talented goalscorers who could consistently beat goaltenders. That execution is something Tocchet is hoping the forwards (and defensemen) can get better at during the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinishing,\u201d the coach said. \u201cImprovement of your shot. There\u2019s some guys \u2014 and I\u2019m not going to name them \u2014 that have to get a harder shot, improve their shot. And you can do that. You can do that. I coached Quinn Hughes in one summer, his shot went up 12 miles an hour. You can improve that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philadelphia was dead last in shots on goal per game (24.6). Tippett led the team with 220 shots with Travis Konecny a distant second (168). Trevor Zegras, Matvei Michkov, and Christian Dvorak were the only other Flyers to be north of 150 shots on goal in a season. Meanwhile, the approach to the game plan might be changed slightly, namely in terms of holding on to the puck more and also winning important battles in the corners in the offensive zone. <\/p>\n
\u201cSystematically, the same thing,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cDo we want to carry the puck in move? Yes. Be more calculated, of course. But I think puck possession and wall work is something we\u2019re really going to concentrate (on) this year. I think that will enhance more offence from certain players and our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Run-and-gun instills no confidence<\/p>\n
Perhaps the biggest factor leading to Philadelphia\u2019s success this season \u2014 outside of Dan Vladar \u2014 was that the team was rarely involved in a laugher. Only a handful of times was a game truly out of reach either way with five to 10 minutes left in the third. It\u2019s clear those type of pressure situations late in games throughout the regular season helped gain the rather youthful roster experience and confidence. They could play in tight games. And they could win their fair share of them also. This was evident down the stretch when one or two late-game mistakes in regulation could\u2019ve made the difference between a playoff spot and an unexciting first-round pick in the mid-teens in June. <\/p>\n
Tocchet said the team isn\u2019t equipped for high-octane goal scoring, so he played with what he had. It was that outlook which he said instilled confidence in the club over the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just felt the first year coming in here, first off we don\u2019t have that type of team to run and gun,\u201d he said. \u201cTo get confidence you have to stay in games. I know people criticize me and there\u2019s a lot of overtime games and tight games, but I think that helped our team. That helped us stay in the race, that helped us get into the playoffs. Losing 6-4 and just playing run and gun for a young player, I disagree with because I think you get no confidence. There\u2019s nothing worse for a younger team. First off you get the hell beat out of you every night physically, and secondly you\u2019re losing 6-3 or 6-4. It doesn\u2019t build confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I\u2019m not saying you have to use a 1-4 defense and stay back all day, that\u2019s not what I\u2019m asking too. But I think the way the players approached this year and being in games, being a 2-2 game and the number of comebacks we had this year. I think it\u2019s going to mean a lot for our team going forward. But having said that, yes we have to stretch the envelop a little bit. A 2-2 game and with six minutes left and we have a two-on-one, can we make that play to score to make it a 3-2 game. Those are the moments we\u2019re going to look for a lot more next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s evident the Flyers proved a lot of people wrong this season with their playoff push and playoff series victory. However, the team and the coaching staff know that success will come much easier if Philadelphia can convert on more of the ample opportunities that presented themselves against Carolina. That work will begin this summer, with hopefully better results during 2026-27.<\/p>\n
Stats courtesy of ESPN and NHL.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Flyers only scored five goals in round two of the 2025-26 playoffs. And after generating a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-641302","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\/641302","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=641302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}