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Tippett and Tocchet: Flyers need a strong relationship
Back on April 9 at Madison Square Garden, Flyers winger Owen Tippett scored an empty net goal to close out an 8-5 win against the New York Rangers. It was his 20th and final tally of the 2024-25 season. It was also just his second goal dating back to March 1. He had Philly’s lone tally in a 4-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken on March 8.
Tippett produced just eight points (2g, 6a) over the final 22 games of the campaign. Correspondingly, he saw somewhat reduced ice time under John Tortorella (fired on March 27) and interim head coach Brad Shaw. It was not the kind of stretch drive that either Tippett or the team envisioned.
The coach-player relationship between Tippett and the fickle, irascible Tortorella took a downturn over the course of Tortorella’s final calendar year behind the Philadelphia bench. This was true of many Flyers players, not just Tippett. Few players were sorry to see “Torts” go.
However, Tippett’s down season in 2024-25 could not be fairly blamed on Tortorella. Likewise, the fact that the Flyers traded the player’s two closest friends on the team (Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee), is not a valid explanation for why his season failed to meet expectations. More likely. Tippett never fully recovered from a Jan. 29 injury suffered in a collision with Brenden Dillon. He missed five games after the injury. Tippett never seemed quite right again the rest of the year. On Exit Day, in fact, Tippett himself said he felt somewhat hampered the rest of the season..
Shorten the cold spells
Entering the 2024-25 season, there were high hopes that Tippett could attain his first 30-plus goal season in the National Hockey League. He had job security, starting a new eight-year contract ($6.2 million average annual value). He turned 26 on February 16, and seemed primed for a career-best season.
Unfortunately, Tippett has always been prone to streaky play. Even in his 27-goal and 28-goal campaigns in 2022-23 and 2023-24, he had a tendency to alternate scorching hot goal streaks with sometimes excessive goal droughts. For a player with his speed, size and finishing ability, Tippett needs to shorten the cold spells.
By all accounts, “Tipp” is a great teammate. However, he’s not always the easiest linemate with whom to gel.
Tippett is not really a “find the seams and feed with a pass” type of winger. Even when open in the slot, he has a tendency to miss the net despite sometimes scoring from greater distance on tricky shots. Rather, many Tippett goals are of the self-made variety (sometimes even going end-to-end to tally a highlight reel goal). To some degree, all goal scorers are streaky. However, Tippett sometimes runs excessively cold.
Nevertheless, at midseason of the 2024-25 campaign, a 30-goal season still seemed doable. He had 14 goals and 30 points through the first 50 games/ That was not quite where he wanted to be but also not too far off pace. He’d already had a run of five goals in six games (Nov. 30 to Dec. 10) about six weeks earlier. Almost exactly one calendar year earlier, he rattled off a streak of six goals in six games (Jan. 8 to 18, 2024) and five tallies in four matches (Nov. 10 to 18, 2023).
Unfortunately, once the injury happened last year, Tippett never really got back on track on a sustained basis.
Tippett: A Flyers focus player for Tocchet
Right from his introductory press conference as the Flyers’ new head coach, Rick Tocchet identified Tippett as one of the players with whom he’s most looking forward to working. Tocchett said there’s another level to the player’s game — both in terns of consistency and as an all-around hockey player — that he believes he can help the player attain.
Tippett is not a lazy player. He never had issues with Tortorella in that regard. Likewise, Tippet’s work ethic should pass muster with Tocchet. Rather, when Tortorella was displeased with Tippett, decision-making and off-puck play were usually the culprits. Tortorella was sometimes to blame for this himself by sending mixed messages: “safe is death” and “I want my offensive players to be aggressive up the ice” until they made an ill-timed turnover or a bad puck support read that ended up in the Philadelphia net.
Tocchet is not one to soft peddle a message to his team. At the same time, he’s not one to publicly throw a player under the bus. He won’t turn video sessions into something his players dread. He won’t speak to (or about) players in dehumanizing ways.
Mike Keenan needed the late EJ McGuire to “clean the blood off the walls” (McGuire’s own description), and Tortorella had Shaw do it. Tocchet will say what he feels he needs to be said to a player. However, he won’t do it in front of teammates and he won’t tell the media that today’s players are “young and dumb”.
Tocchet won’t liken a human being to a toilet seat. He won’t deliberately choose a game in front of an every game starter’s family to suddenly scratch him (and then deny he even knew it was the player’s hometown or otherwise a game of personal significance). Likewise, Tocchet will never threaten a player to “bury” him on the bench or the scratch list. He won’t actively try to provoke confrontation, believing that it’s the precursor to a better coach-player relationship on the other side.
In terms of hockey beliefs, Tocchet is not that far removed from Tortorella. In terms of communication style and showing as much professionalism as he demands of others, Tocchet and Tortorella could hardly be more different. Cam York is one player who can benefit the most from the coaching regime change. Tippett is another who is right near the top of the list. Tocchet won’t “go easy” on a player but he also won’t itch for confrontation if the player needs to work through a slump. He’d been there himself at times during his own playing career.
Flyers Daily: Charlie O’Connor
Charlie O’Connor was Jason Myrtetus’ guest on Friday’s edition of Flyer Daily. Topics include Danny Briere’s offseason as the rebuild rolls on, Rick Tocchet behind the bench, Porter Martone’s decision to go to the NCAA, Jett Luchanko, Matvei Michkov’s upcoming second NHL season and more. The episode runs 48 minutes.
Do you think Tippett could be moved at some point this season if he does not produce on a consistent basis?
It’s not impossible but I don’t think it’s likely.