Significant issue exposed in Philadelphia all because of John Tortorella

The Philadelphia Flyers fell to the Washington Capitals, 4-1, Tuesday night at the Wells Fargo Center, with the club now being 1-4-1 and outscored 25-13 since the start of the season. Philly and Washington are right back at it later tonight, and something has to change for the Flyers and head coach John Tortorella.

Kevin Kurz of the Athletic has pointed out on Wednesday morning what the biggest issue might me in the Flyers’ lineup as he explains that “through six games, the Flyers have started games with 18 (!) different forward line combinations.” He adds:

“Not sure how anyone is going to develop chemistry when things are in the blender that often.”

Kurz followed the line combinations since the start of the season, realizing how Torts makes several changes that could be more detrimental to the team than anything else.

After the loss to the Caps last night, Tortorella commented on the rough start to 2024-25, per the Inquirer:

“I don’t equate the start of this year toward last year,” Tortorella said. “I think there are other reasons why it ended the way it did last year, and I don’t think that’s what it is here. We’re not scoring. As we start to get more frustrated, that’s when we started to give up chances. We have to keep on fighting and try to force good things to come our way.

“We’re going to figure this out. We just have to go through it together and not lose ourselves in frustration and forget about how we play.”

We all know how much of a drill sergeant Torts can be, and that’s exactly what needs to happen here.
And maybe he needs to stick to some lines, get chemistry going and, yeah, in the end, win some games to gain confidence and momentum. Let’s see what happens in tonight’s game, the only one on the calendar tonight.