VOORHEES, N.J. - Rick Tocchet is about to find out a lot more in Year 2, and so are the Flyers.
That was the undercurrent at Sunday’s practice at the Flyers Training Center, where Tocchet made it clear the second go-round should come with less teaching from scratch and more fine-tuning. The blueprint is in place now.
The players know the expectations. And when things drift, Tocchet believes the group can steer itself back to its base.
“There is a blueprint to how we want to play,” Tocchet said after practice. “So if we go a little bit sideways, we can get back to our base. That’s the good thing about having a year with these guys.”
The roster has changed some, but most of the familiar names remain. That matters to Tocchet, who said camp feels different now that the team has already lived through one full season with him.
“It’s only been a year and we’ve still got a lot of work to do,” Tocchet said. “But it does help coming to training camp knowing there are certain things where the guys expect and know what to do. Last year you kind of had to walk them through it.”
The Flyers’ response to Saturday’s 5-1 preseason loss to Washington also gave Tocchet a useful teaching point. He called it “humbling,” and Sunday’s session was all about cleaning up the details that slipped the night before.
“This team practices really hard,” Tocchet said. “I really like that.
Even if things don’t go well the night before, they put good work in. We talked about what we have to work on the last couple games.
They’re trying to do it on the ice.”
Captain Sean Couturier said the message around the room is clear: last season was a start, not a finish.
“We know each other, we know our group, we know what we can do,” Couturier said. “But we have to push ourselves to another level this year. What happened last year was good but we have to do that year after year and have high expectations of ourselves.”
Couturier was also asked about Tocchet’s postgame remark after the Washington loss, when the coach said he was almost pleased by the 5-1 score because “sometimes you aren’t as good as you think you are.”
Couturier agreed it can serve as a jolt.
“Yeah, it can definitely give you a reality check,” Couturier said. “Keep us humble, keep us down to earth.
And kind of remind us we need to put the work in to get some results. It was a learning lesson.
An embarrassing loss that we can take some positives from as well.”
Travis Konecny, meanwhile, sounded like a veteran who already understands where Tocchet is pushing this team.
“Even though it’s the same team, the maturity we have, the growth we have just takes you that much deeper,” Konecny said. “When you can stick everybody together and come back with the same team, it’s really exciting.”
There was also some optimism around the crease. No. 1 goaltender Dan Vladar was on the ice Sunday, and the Flyers are hopeful he’ll be ready when the Pittsburgh Penguins visit Wednesday for the opener.
Konecny said he never doubted Vladar would be there.
“There was no doubt for me he was going to be back and ready to go,” Konecny said. “Good to see him out there.”
Tocchet was a bit more measured.
“I wouldn’t say he’s a hundred percent but he’s very hopeful,” he said.
The lineup picture is also getting clearer. On Sunday, Konecny skated with Alex Bump and Christian Dvorak, a combination Tocchet believes could bring the right mix.
“It could be a really good line for us,” Tocchet said. “You’ve got shooters on the line.
TK is a good forechecker, ‘Bumper’ can shoot the puck. ‘Dvo’ is responsible.”
There were a couple of absences from practice, too. Denver Barkey and Nikita Grebenkin did not skate, and Tocchet said both are “kind of day-to-day.”
The opener arrives with a demanding schedule right out of the gate, and Tocchet wants his team out of preseason mode quickly.
“I think you want to get to your game as quick as possible,” he said. “We’ve got to get summer hockey out of our head. Just like every”
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