Philadelphia Flyers head coach John Tortorella spoke on the first day of the team's training camp, commending how players pushed through his infamous rope test and giving some insight into how the Flyers are preparing for the 2024-25 season.
He talked about his meeting with the players on Sept. 18, acknowledging that "we have a lot of work to do with our team, but I put this room up against any team in this league as far as the room conducted itself last year. It's better one of the better rooms I've been in."
One of the ways the team builds chemistry during preseason is through Tortorella's infamous rope test, which players admit that the test "sucks," but that the shared difficult experience helps them bond—and that's exactly what he wants to see.
"A lot of people say, 'He's an idiot, he doesn't have pucks on the ice,' this, that, and the other thing," Tortorella said. "It's an effective way for me to judge where people are at and judge the camaraderie of what we're trying to do here."
The Flyers' bench boss was transparent about what he thinks he and the team could've done better last season, admitting that numerous factors contributed to them just missing the playoffs.
He highlighted how he "wore [goaltender Sam Ersson] out" in the second half of the season, and acknowledged that "rebounds, deflections...and creating offense when we needed it" were also areas that needed addressing.
For Tortorella, his big message is that he wants to continue evolving the Flyers' game and not let players get too comfortable now that they're on their third year with the current coaching staff. He described it as "human nature" to get a little complacent because "they know us and we know them," but is making it a priority to not let his team settle too much.
"If you're a head coach and you're not trying to evolve, it could get ugly really quick," he said. "It's year three, right? The way I look at it is it's year three in our program, year three with the same coach staff...I think it's gonna be a big part of our foundation this year—do they get comfortable with us?
"Sometimes it's human nature that they give just a little bit...[and] as we talked about with the room, the room has been fantastic, but what I've gotta watch is, do you just give a bit or am I leaving it alone too much at certain times? Because I trust them, I have to coach them differently. I've had them three years. I have to respect that they've improved. So, with coaching changes, how much does it change and when does it change?"
He outlined how his previous seasons with the Flyers have gone—year one was about "subtracting" from the team, year two was about really focusing on youth development—and stated that this year was going to be about taking the young guys that made such big strides last season and pushing them to that next level.
"We still have a lot of work to do in growing with our youth," he said. "So this year is [Owen Tippett], [Tyson] Foerster, Cam York, to name a few—we're really happy with their progression, but it's not good enough. We've gotta keep getting better. And that includes the coaching staff in how we coach. We have to do things differently also."
For Tortorella, even though evolution is going to be a big theme this season, they still want to hold true to the foundations they've built.
"We're gonna continue to play fast, we're not gonna be safe," he said. "We're gonna continue to work at that. We need to score...We were one of the best teams in transition and creating offense, but we didn't finish. We need to find a way to finish.
"It's a combination of both us and then feeling your team, see where we're at, see where the guys are at."
