said after the morning skate Thursday<\/a> regarding Foerster\u2019s skillset toolbox and what he brings to the team. \u201cProbably his hockey IQ, his hockey is outstanding. You guys saw him at the beginning of the year, shot ability, plays all situations, he\u2019s a hockey player. He gets it done. So we\u2019re excited for him. He worked hard. Four months, a lot of lonely nights here at the rink by himself so I give him a lot of credit.\u201d<\/p>\nWhen Foerster left the ice with a shoulder injury after taking a slap shot against the Penguins on Dec. 1, most figured he was done for the season, and with that a huge offensive threat missing. But Foerster put in the work, and was given the green light by the doctors. So he\u2019s good to go. According to different tests yesterday, Foerster seems to be on par or even better than it was at the start of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah he did tests yesterday and he passed all with flying colors, so that\u2019s why the doctors (gave him the okay),\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cThat\u2019s why obviously we wanted them to dive in and make sure and his numbers were strong, more than normal. So he\u2019s ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
How Tyson Foerster in return will be used is important<\/p>\n
Perhaps the biggest test facing Foerster is trying to get back into game action without showing much rust. Naturally, having not played in nearly 50 games, it\u2019s natural Foerster isn\u2019t going to look quite on top of things from the get go. <\/p>\n
But Tocchet knows Foerster will have to be monitored in terms of his ice time and minutes. Whether that means primarily five-on-five usage and limited time on the penalty kill remains to be seen. You just don\u2019t want to overuse a guy who has been out for four months. Especially given how important these games are down the stretch. And just how ridiculously condensed the games are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell I got to look at it obviously I relied on him a lot at the beginning of the year,\u201d Tocchet said regarding the winger\u2019s usage. \u201cI mean you guys saw it, I used him a lot. But I also got to be careful too. Just him being out there, I mean you saw the morning skate, and the guys had jump anyways but those guys were buzzing they\u2019re excited. He\u2019s a big part of our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course with Foerster\u2019s addition, that means one of the 12 forwards will not be dressing tonight, and the odd man out is winger Garnet Hathaway. Hathaway, Luke Glendening, and Sean Couturier have done a good job as a fourth line in recent games. But with Foerster able to play again, it\u2019s a given somebody had to be a healthy scratch. Tocchet was emphatic on stressing that the additions of Foerster and Porter Martone this week has resulted in some shuffling in terms of personnel.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah there are some guys that are not going to play that are good players,\u201d Tocchet said, later citing Alex Bump as a prime example. \u201cThat\u2019s good and bad for them but it also breeds competition and putting puzzles together, who goes with who, who can complement whoever. So those are tough decisions but they\u2019re decisions you got to make. But I love the competition, it makes people play with more urgency, which is good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Porter Martone continues to get more comfortable<\/p>\n
Although the team will be pumped to have Foerster back, they also probably haven\u2019t stopped buzzing about winger Porter Martone\u2019s debut game. Martone, who played Tuesday night against Washington, was finding his way early but started to become visible as in the second and particularly the third period. It was something not lost on the head coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we all said the same thing, as the game went on he felt more comfortable,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cHe really had three or four chances, he had that one after the second right in front of the net. He gets a shot. He\u2019s like Tyson, they know how to get in position to get the shot off. They\u2019re greasy, but they can also make skilled plays. But for him I just want him to relax, he was a little bit nervous early. But getting him in there, I thought he played 15 minutes, he was talking to Jay and Yogi about some power play stuff. Yogi and Jay came to me and said, this guy\u2019s got some hockey IQ on the power play. So we\u2019re just adding another guy who\u2019s a really good hockey player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tocchet stressed the Flyers need to avoid taking penalties to avoid a similar fate like the loss in Washington. And they have to be ready to go from the opening faceoff. The Flyers are still now out of a playoff spot, but of the five teams looking for either a wild card position or seeding in the Metropolitan Division, none are adding two high-end wingers like the Flyers have this week in Martone and Foerster. It should be a huge asset given that the Flyers have eight games in the next 13 days, games that\u2019ll decide if they\u2019re in or out of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. I think with the youth you can think that way,\u201d the coach said in reference to the schedule and the amount of young forwards the Flyers have at their disposal. \u201cSome guys are sitting out. A like like Bump, it\u2019s not that he\u2019s coming out because he\u2019s playing bad. It\u2019s just a numbers game and you\u2019re bringing in a Tyson Foerster. He\u2019s got to be ready. I know that Lehigh is fighting for a playoff spot too so it\u2019s been great for the organization where we have this depth and where we\u2019re using it. So we\u2019ll sort that out as it goes.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now we\u2019re going game to game, we have to think that way. But 8 in 13 is treacherous and we\u2019ve already lived it this month. This team has done a really nice job, we\u2019ve got home at 3:30 in the morning and these guys have brought that energy. These are valuable for the young guys to know that hey, it\u2019s a mental thing too and they\u2019re showing up for the next game, even in adverse conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been 49 long games since Philadelphia Flyers winger Tyson Foerster last played, after injuring himself in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,4,1467,56,5205],"class_list":{"0":"post-537032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-flyers","8":"tag-flyers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","13":"tag-philadelphiaflyers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116336563755551579","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}