from Carol Schram of The Hockey News,
If you thought the Philadelphia Flyers were grinding down their opponents during their first 33 games of the season, you ain't seen nothing yet.
"If we're going to survive, you have to check at this time of year – you just change your mindset, here, about the small little battles in the game," said Philadelphia coach John Tortorella after his team came out of the holiday break with a disciplined 4-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena on Thursday.
"Quite honestly, before the break, I didn't think we were playing hard enough, but I left them alone because we were finding ways to win," he added. "Now we're going to coach them. I think we need to be a harder team to play against and hopefully we can build on the checking tonight and bring it into tomorrow night's game."
It's hard to argue with Tortorella's point. The Flyers' last game before Christmas was a wild 7-6 shootout loss in Detroit on Dec. 22, where Philadelphia came back from a 5-1 deficit to take a late lead before settling for a point.
Thursday's outing looked a lot more like textbook Torts, whose 723rd career NHL win as a coach broke a tie with Alain Vigneault for 10th place all-time.
Watch the game highlights below.
from Adam Kimelman of NHL.com,
John Tortorella will have the familiar scowl and angry disposition he's had for most of the previous 1,499 NHL games he's coached when he steps behind the bench for the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday.
And Mike Sullivan will laugh, like he usually does.
"He polishes his own schtick, don't kid yourself," said Sullivan, the Pittsburgh Penguins coach who spent six seasons as Tortorella's assistant with three teams. "He's pretty calculated with respect to that."
Tortorella, 65, will become the first coach born in the United States, and eighth overall, to reach 1,500 games when the Flyers visit the Seattle Kraken (10 p.m. ET; ROOT-NW, NBCSP+).
In 22 seasons with the New York Rangers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vancouver Canucks, Columbus Blue Jackets and Flyers, Tortorella is 723-590-149 with 37 ties. He's 10th on the NHL wins list, and second among U.S.-born coaches behind current Rangers coach Peter Laviolette (776).
Tortorella's teams have reached the Stanley Cup Playoffs 12 times, including the 2004 Stanley Cup champion Lightning. He has won the Jack Adams Award as NHL coach of the year twice, in 2004 and in 2017 with the Blue Jackets.
His manner and methods have been described with several adjectives over the years, most of them unflattering.
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