rick tocchet flyers

Why Rick Tocchet teams don’t shoot

There was a Rick Tocchet graphic on the broadcast, specifically Canadian Sportsnet, that made it’s rounds on social media during the Flyers game against the Flames on Sunday.

Why Rick Tocchet teams don’t shoot

That’s a pretty big sample, in which the Flyers are merely the continuation of a trend. Rick Tocchet teams don’t get rubber in the area of the goal.

They never have, and if the present trend holds, they never will.

Now, the big question is… why?

  • Why do Rick Tocchet teams not shoot?
  • Does he press the not shoot button?
  • Do teams not shoot because they have to dump and chase on the entry?
  • What’s happening?

I pride myself on targeting areas that are worth your ire but then telling you how to focus that ire. So, I set out to watch the offensive zone tape of the Flyers this season. It took me precisely two periods to confirm my suspicions.

This is a problem. Coaching is the source. And so long as the coach remains the same, it won’t get better. They might have some friendly PDO runs, but the trendline will always be the same.

At root, there are 4 scenarios to generate shots on goal as a hockey team. Off the rush, off the forecheck, off the cycle, off the draw. A shot attempt off of the rush is a shot attempt that happens shortly after a player carries the puck over the offensive blueline.

A shot attempt off of the forecheck is when your forecheck forces a turnover from the opposing team, and you create a shot on goal immediately after recovering that puck.

A shot attempt off of the cycle is when your team has sustained offensive zone pressure where they control the puck that entire time, cycling it between each other around the outside while they search for a way to crack the defense and get a scoring chance on the interior.

Every shot attempt comes in one of those 4 situations. 3 of those are worth study. So, let’s review how Rick Tocchet teams attempt to play each, where they fall short, and how much of that either should or can be fixed.

Off the rush:

It’s no secret that Rick Tocchet coached teams aren’t exactly rush demons. A modicum of that is his emphasis on puck management, but it’s a much smaller role than people think.

You can absolutely generate rush chances while playing “Rick Tocchet hockey.” It’s just… so, so hard.

It all starts with the breakout. Every NHL team has to decide which point they’re going to detach from their checks in the defensive zone coverage and attempt to find space to serve as outlets when they’re going to break the puck out.

It’s a constant give-and-take between support and space. The former is necessary for defense; the latter is vital for offense.

Rick Tocchet teams forego that choice almost entirely. While some teams send their weak side winger out early to get ahead of the play and stretch the opposing defense, the Dallas Stars and New Jersey Devils or Columbus Blue Jackets are all premiere examples, Rick Tocchet teams have all 5 guys attached to the defensive play until the puck is secured.

That’s manageable. It just takes a lot to generate offense afterwards. It takes players who can weave their way through set structures and use skating or skill or guile to cleave apart defenses.

Gee, I wonder who can do that…

Matvei has absolutely nothing here for seconds on end. He just… creates something.

That’s what players in Rick Tocchet’s systems have to do if they want to get any rush offense going. It won’t be schemed up for them. Players have to earn it through their sheer offensive magnificence.

I think that’s fine, but… maybe play the players who can actually do that?

Off the forecheck:

The hardest type of offense to generate. You need players who can force the turnover and then recognize when the turnover is forced with enough time to position themselves to receive a pass and create a scoring chance.

The Florida Panthers, especially when they have their top guys, are shining examples of this.

This is almost Rick Tocchet dream hockey, but it’s just so hard to make a living like this. The Panthers aren’t the only team who do it. There are also the Columbus Blue Jackets, who’ve turned their organization around by embracing this style of offense.

The truth is, you’re just not going to see a lot of this from the Flyers. They don’t have the size nor the skating to instantly force a turnover and then turn that into offense off the same play. A lot of people talk about the skill of the team, but I actually think the primary personnel limitation is this… their lack of overwhelming physicality.

Porter Martone is one of the best forecheck creators I’ve ever seen as a prospect. A savant at forcing turnovers and immediately beginning the quick rotations required to get a chance from the ensuing scramble.

Players like Matvei Michkov and Trevor Zegras have the skill and sense to do it, but somebody has to jar the puck loose too, right?

All in all, this is probably where coaching matters the least and personnel matters the most. And the Flyers are limited.

Off the cycle.

After you force the turnover and there’s no quick strike chance, after you gain the blueline and there’s no quick strike chance from that, you’re left with cycling the puck around the zone to try and create offense the slow way. In some ways, this is the hardest way to generate offense.

When teams have a set structure, they’re in their structure, and they’re making you come to them. When teams are daring you to break apart fully set defenses of the finest hockey teams on earth, there’s not usually a good answer for that.

Teams like the Tampa Bay Lightning and Edmonton Oilers laugh at the pittance of resistance offered by something as measly as “defensive zone structures,” and they watch as the most skilled players of our age methodically pick apart the defense

One would think that the Flyers are kinda just screwed here, right?

Well, actually no…

It turns out, they do actually employ players who look at set structures as if they’re pitiful things made to be broken. Glass in the presence of a hammer.

The truth is that it’s extremely difficult to find footage of the Flyers generating off of the cycle, and that isn’t because they don’t have players capable of doing it. No, it’s for two reasons that both have to do with coaching.

You have two players capable of creating off of the cycle, Matvei Michkov and Trevor Zegras, and you use neither. Nikita Grebenkin may be a third, but you don’t use him either.

So, you used to have 3 and now you have 1 simply because the coach is bad at coaching. That’s a problem.

But this is also where the structure comes in. Every team has an offensive zone structure. It’s something like the equal opposite of defensive zone coverage.

When we possess the puck at the blueline, we’re going to…

The Colorado Avalanche are going to bring their center high and then work give-and-go’s with one of their several defensemen. They’re going to slash downhill and find one of the wingers, who can either pass again or shoot for the chance. The wingers are the play-finishers.

The Edmonton Oilers are going to hand the puck to one of their game-breakers, who is going to use pure skill to work their way off of the wall and beat their defender to the middle of the ice. When the defense collapses, they’re going to hit the open guy and get a chance.

When the Carolina Hurricanes of two years ago had the puck, they were going to filter it to the point and allow those boys at the blueline to bomb away like there’d be no tomorrow.

The Philadelphia Flyers under Rick Tocchet is similar to the Hurricanes in that approach, except immeasurably worse.

You see, when the Flyers have the puck on the cycle, their great idea is to filter the puck to the point and then immediately send two of the three forwards on the ice to screen.

Two.

That’s so fucking gratuitous it boggles the mind.

And of course, those two forwards aren’t just going to be allowed to set layered screens at the netfront. No, of course not. They’re going to drag two defenders with them.

Now there’s four bodies in front of the net, and where’s the puck support for the defenseman with the puck? Absolutely nowhere.

So, they better shoot.

And when they shoot, they will hit the glass or they will hit the mass of bodies, and you won’t get a deflection goal, because you can’t just park in front of the net and wait for a tip.

The NHL is too damn hard for something that simple.

You’re assigning your worst shooters the task of filtering the puck through four bodies, and you’re wondering why that isn’t producing results? I mean, really? Do I actually need to sit here and explain to you why that’s a ridiculous idea?

I’m sorry, but it’s so basic… so utterly self-explanatory… that I really don’t feel the need to do anything more than bask at the foolishness of it with all of you. I don’t need to explain to you. You know. You read that, and you know.

Rick Tocchet doesn’t know. And I know why he doesn’t know. Because Rick Tocchet understands that one of the hardest plays for a goaltender to defend is what’s called broken plays.

A shot that gets blocked and produces a rebound to an unmarked shooter, for example. Instances of horrible luck, frankly. Those have an implied shooting percentage of somewhere around 40%. As in, if you get these bounces, you’re going to shoot 40% on them.

Here’s the issue… you never get them. They’re broken plays. You can’t shoot for broken plays.

You have to shoot for controllable outcomes. Not minor miracles.

I’ll tell you what’s happening in that room. Defensemen are seeing a mess of bodies and they’re saying… no go. There’s not a lane here and I’m not going to turn it over. So, they go D to D because they have no other choice, and you hope the second defenseman can do something.

But they usually can’t.

I doubt that this turns around, if you want my honest opinion.

Rick Tocchet certainly isn’t saying the right things. Instead of realizing that he runs an archaic offensive zone structure that was propped up by the herculean efforts of Quinn Hughes, he has instead chosen to yell at his players for lacking “will.”

No, you just don’t employ any defensemen with the hands of Patrick Kane and the edgework of Cale Makar because there’s only one of those.

Perhaps they could create some offense in spite of themselves. But that would require giving some ice time to the one guy who’s capable of doing that… and they don’t want to do that.

So, the Flyers will get what they paid 5 million annually for. A deserted building against Nashville. And fans falling asleep in the 200 level against Calgary.

Join The Chase

Read More

Comments (0)

Leave a Reply

Back To Top

Discover more from The Liberty Line

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading