12/1 PHI vs. PIT Postgame: Rick Tocchet

12/1 PHI vs. PIT Postgame: Rick Tocchet

Do you have any update on Tyson Forester? Uh, not yet. Upper body, but not yet. I haven’t talked to anybody. How How concerned are you considering how big his role has been? Yeah, I know he’s a good player. Yeah, I I don’t know. I hope it’s not long because, you know, obviously he’s a big part of our team. On the bench, you just the timing of the injury. You you guys tie it up. You’re you’re on the power play, then he runs up. Did you get the sense that that halted your guys momentum? Um, I I don’t think so. I mean, maybe. I I I don’t you know, obviously when one of your good players is out, but I don’t think that’s the reason why to be honest with you, but but losing a player like that does hurt, obviously. Yeah. Rick, you you know some of those guys on the other side pretty well. Just when you put them on the power play like that, just how much can they hurt you? Well, they got championship pedigree, right? Uh, you know, they were well coached tonight. They they stuck their game plan. They went they went north on us. We had some we had ch first per actually we had some chances and um not much velocity on the shots. It was kind of I don’t know we we weren’t assertive enough and then obviously the PK which has been good all year struggle tonight. You know we’re a little out of structure but they snap it around and they get a lot of shots from the middle and that’s we’re trying to get our guys do. It’s actually a good learning lesson is get that shot in the middle uh before the one of the goals. I think Malcin had two blasts puck goes. That’s when you usually score power play goals when you shoot it retrievals then then teams get out of structure and then they got the what the one in the slot and then the other one Sid got one because we cheated on one of them. So it’s just one of those things that you know we got to clean up the PK. It’s I haven’t really liked the structure of the PK the last five games we got we’ve got lucky a little bit. Vlatt’s been good or we got to clean up the structure part of it. How much do you chalk this up to, you know, your fifth game in five days, first home game back after road trip and and and how much do you weigh that, I guess, when you see the performance? Well, you learn from your team, right? They were t you could tell, you know, as a coach in the morning, you know, I’m trying to, you know, we’re trying as a staff to, you know, you got to win tired, though. A lot of teams play five and eight. So, I can’t use that excuse, but I understand guys are tired, but that’s where you got to really dig in, stick to the game plan. you know, sometimes a neutral shift’s okay. Um, I just felt, you know, some we had a chunk of guys who weren’t, they just weren’t in it tonight. Um, yeah, that’s really it. But it’s it’s a learned lesson and, you know, I’m giving the I’m going to give them the day off tomorrow. Um, hopefully they can reset, you know, after this road trip. We’ve had a pretty good run here. We just can’t reread our press clipins, too. I think we got a little too comfortable at the start. got a little bit too cute and I think that we got to be careful. When you talk about cleaning up the structure of the penalty kill, what’s what’s a little off there? Like what what are you seeing that’s not not right? Well, not understanding like we’re we just we’ve been running around lately. You know, you you know, we’re diamond aggressive diamond. Um, and then we just got to, you know, if you look at the goals after the shot, two guys ran out of position, opens up the middle, open twice. You know, that’s those are killers. You know, if you give the flanker shots, you can, you know, you can live with it. The one I think Russ flanker, you know, Sandy’s got to get out there. That’s his flex. You know, he he was too he was too backed in too much. He flexes out, takes the, you know, his job is take the weak side away so Vlatty can see it. Things like that. But that’s just, you know, maybe it’s a guys being tired, mentally tired.

Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet met with the media following tonight’s 5-1 loss to the Penguins.