VOORHEES, N.J. — The Flyers’ power play entered Tuesday tied for 30th in the NHL at 15.3 percent.
Over the last five seasons combined, going back to 2021-22, it has a league-worst mark of 13.9 percent.
The team’s familiar struggles on the power play elicited some boos over a four-game homestand that ended with two lopsided losses to the Lightning.
“Our power play, you can tell some guys are nervous out there,” Rick Tocchet said after the Flyers’ 5-1 loss Monday night. “We’ve just got to relax them. That’s my job, we’ve got to get these guys to relax a little bit.”
How can a coach do that?
“Communication, practicing, grabbing individuals, ask them what they think,” Tocchet said Tuesday. … “You’re in a sport when things don’t go your way, you’re going to hear it, there might be some people mad up in the stands. You’ve got to go through that, you’ve got to be battle-tested.”
Tocchet knows a thing or two about performing in Philadelphia.
“Everybody’s a good guy when things go great,” he said. “Things aren’t going great, how do we deal with it? That’s really what we’re trying to figure out right now. Are we getting frustrated? Are guys getting mad at each other on the bench? You’ve got to stick together. We don’t want to let that creep into our game.”
Last season, Matvei Michkov and Travis Konecny tied for the team lead in power play points, each finishing with eight goals and nine assists. This season, Trevor Zegras leads the Flyers in power play points on six goals and seven assists.
But in eight games since the holiday break, those three players have combined for one point on the power play (a Zegras goal). The Flyers have gone 2 for 23 over that stretch.
“It’s my job to fix it,” Tocchet said. “Obviously we’ve got to get more middle shots, harder shots, goals from the middle. I’m not picking on guys, but Trevor and Mich and those guys who are our better players, they have to attack the middle of the ice.”
The Flyers feel their power play units are not making the right reads when plays are there to be made.
“When you beat pressure, then it becomes execution,” Tocchet said. “And we’re having a tough time with that.
“We have to think of a way for players to retain some of the information we’re giving them. Because we’re not giving them a lot. Maybe early in the season we did, which wasn’t bad, but now we’re going to have to really dumb it down a little bit.”