With a classic humorous twist, Philadelphia Flyers head coach John Tortorella explained the thought process behind his seemingly endless lineup changes after practice on Friday.
AP Photo/Chris O'Mear
The veteran coach has had to work through a number of challenges in real time this season, including finding consistent partners for rookie star Matvei Michkov and trying to fit 18-year-old center Jett Luchanko in the lineup without giving him too few minutes.
Tortorella has identified a potential solution for Michkov, but admits it is an ongoing process that takes place during both games and practices.
“I’m just gonna put ’em there. Sometimes you just have to put ’em there,” Tortorella said in regards to playing players out of position, and specifically Travis Konecny, who is now going to play on the left wing across from Michkov.
“I like that chemistry. I have tried… I’ve used Tipp and Mich quite a bit to see if something would work, and it hasn’t,” Tortorella admitted. “Tipp sometimes has good chemistry. Frosty, I tried all three of those together, and I tried two of them together. It just hasn’t worked right now.”
And Tortorella admitted that a host of players are going through it right now amidst the Flyers’ dismal 1-5-1 start and six-game losing streak. It’s his job to put every player in a position to succeed, but sometimes circumstances can change that.
Injuries happen and penalties happen, and not all players are featured on the power play or the penalty kill.
“It’s not like I’m a mad scientist back there, just trying to throw things around. Line combinations happen quite a bit after power plays, penalty killing. Takes you a couple of rotations to get them back. Sometimes, especially in the situation we’re in right now, we’re struggling offensively, if I try something different after a power play or after a penalty kill, when I see something there, I say, ‘Man, maybe I’ll stay with that.’
“So with line combinations, with me, I wish I could just roll with it. But when you struggle offensively, and you see something might work in a game, after certain situations, I’m gonna stick with it.”
Tortorella was also made aware of a tweet posted by Kevin Kurz of The Athletic, which subsequently made it onto the TNT television broadcast ahead of Wednesday’s 6-3 loss to the Washington Capitals.
Kurz’s tweet was simply a compilation of the 18 different line combinations Tortorella and the Flyers have started their seven games with so far this season. Tortorella took some humor in it, and even doubled it and gave it back to TNT.
“Any decision I make with lines is, I’m hoping I’m trying to help the team. And with a team struggling offensively, I think I need to. If I didn’t, you probably say, ‘Why the hell hasn’t he changed his lines?’ There’s a chicken and the egg, I guess, right?
“But I go by feel, and I have hung in there with with Tipp and Mich quite a bit. And I just don’t see it working. So in a long-winded answer, I don’t have an answer. It’s just, I watch it and I adjust to what I see is going to help the team, and if I make the right decisions, I don’t know.
“I certainly haven’t made enough here, because we still are not scoring. Hopefully some other guys get going. And it’s also get guys going too, like I threw Tyson around before I sat him just to see if I could get him going somehow. So, there’s no true answer to it.
“So, tell TNT to kiss my ass!”
Everybody laughed.
The Tortorella line blender seems destined to continue thundering onward, at least for now. And now we know why.
