It’s no secret that the Flyers have taken their fair share of penalties. Heading into Wednesday’s game against host Utah, Philadelphia sits sixth in the league with 520 minutes in penalties. It’s a strain on the team’s penalty kill, and a strain that has caused more than a few leaks in that particular special teams sector. Sure some penalties are unavoidable, sometimes even good, but the Flyers are taking a bevy of just dumb, brain-cramping infractions. And during Wednesday’s post-practice presser, Philadelphia head coach Rick Tocchet suggested he’s reached his boiling point.
“It falls on me and accountability,” the coach said. “If the guys take a lot of penalties, what’s the next level? You can’t play them. I mean you have to sit them out. It could get to that level with some guys. We’re taking too many of the same penalties, stick penalties, needless penalties. You’d like the leadership group to handle it too to help out the coaching staff but ultimately it falls on me. If you’re a team that takes undisciplined, and I hate undisciplined teams, it falls on me.”
Rick Tocchet says he’ll bench Flyers if penalties get out of control
Tocchet even hinted he would consider simply not dressing some players if they continued needlessly putting an already poor penalty kill to the test. “I might have to do some stuff to clean that up,” he said. “If it’s a good player doing it all the time, and he sits out, so be it. That could be the next level because if you keep taking these stick penalties. at the end of the day, you can’t keep killing these five or six penalties. And the penalties we’re getting, high sticking or hooking or tripping. I mean a good old-fashioned, a good hit in the corner, and they call it charging or something I can live with it. Or an aggressive penalty. But these ones are just inexcusable. So that’s something that falls on me and it’s going to get to the next level and that’s accountability, so we’re going to have to start doing something to stop it. So I have to do something about it to stop it.”
The coach didn’t call out any players in particular, but it seems to be an issue with some players. Although Garnet Hathaway has been more visible since being a healthy scratch, he’s taken 25 minutes in penalties in January so far, compared to just four all of December. And a few other players have taken mind-numbing infractions. But Tocchet seemed to indicate the stick infractions were ones that neither he nor his coaching staff have time for, attributing it to discipline and just a complete lack of attention.
“No, this is focus,” Tocchet said when asked if the recent losing streak resulted in players possibly trying too hard or doing too much. “You’re in the front of the net with a guy, there’s no reason to have your stick that high in the air. We want to be aggressive and engaged, but with your stick on the ice, get inside the hips, keep your stick down. And this is another thing; for example, if you want to be aggressive, you don’t go into a pile with your stick and your body position on your back foot. You want to be on top of your stick, right, to go through people. That’s the best way, that will keep your stick down. There’s a little bit of a technique thing to it.”
So while some Flyers continue to endure rather lengthy goal-less streaks, it’s probably incumbent on every player to keep their discipline in check. A few more dumb penalties and Tocchet might be gluing the player to the bench. Or sending him to the stands to watch a few games. It might be a stern message, but it’s a message that would almost certainly get across to all 18 skaters.
