TORTORELLA: Foundation building remains top priority

John Tortorella doesn't look backwards. He looks forward. Even in the sense of a game-to-game timeline. Play a game, evaluate it, move on. Don't worry about what happened in the past.

So let it be known that here, on December 1, 2022, Tortorella established a baseline. Perhaps for him it was established a couple months ago, but whether he intended to or not on a late Thursday morning, he's now gone on record as setting a course that points forward, and the goal is, upward. And he wants you to come with him.

"I know some other things were said out here before I came here," Tortorella said ahead of Thursday's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, referencing whether the Flyers needed a complete revamp or just some retooling. "It hasn't changed my thinking as far as what I think needs to be done here. This team needs to be built, and it needs to be built from the footers. We're not even in the foundation, we're in the footer position as far as I'm concerned. Just try to build this foundation the proper way."

So that is where we are at. And it's where we should be at this point. The goal remains to win the Stanley Cup. The reality is that it's probably not happening this season, but that doesn't mean that this season won't be a huge part of eventually getting the Flyers to that point.

"This isn't a one-year type of thing," Tortorella said. "We've got some work to do, and it's going to take some time. No matter what people want to hear out here, it's going to take some time to get this right. If we want to get it right, it's going to take some time."

That word "rebuild" has not been used much in the Flyers orbit, but you can just chop off the first two letters and that's what's already happening.

"I'm not a big language guy," Tortorella said. "I like building, I like using building words because I like seeing things built. I'm thrilled that right now I have the opportunity to help there. As far as language, you can call it whatever the hell you want. I know how this coaching staff is going to go about it. Whatever word you want to use, you can use."

Now to be clear, this is not a scorched-earth rebuild that has been seen from time to time in other cities. The Flyers have plenty to work with both on the NHL roster and in Allentown. But while most people look at stats and personnel, there is much more that goes into whether a hockey team is successful or not. Flyers president & general manager Chuck Fletcher said Tortorella was brought in to solve some of the other problems he felt the Flyers had.

"In my opinion last year at the end of the season, clearly we had a lot of injuries and we dealt with a lot of adversity," Fletcher said. "But our culture wasn't right. We didn't have a team identity. We didn't defend well, our work ethic, our compete. Bringing in Torts, our goal was to sort of reestablish an identity of how we want to play, how we want to work, how we want to defend. We felt that was really critical to fix."

So that is what Tortorella and his staff have started to do. They are working to instill systems and fundamentals that will serve as Tortorella's metaphorical footers for what's ahead. The establishment of one of those footers could be seen in the Flyers' win over the Islanders on November 30. the goals, but at the team's play without the puck, particularly in the defensive end. That was a footer, and the game-by-game goal is to get the team's play in that game to be the default.

Tortorella also emphasized that the opportunity to get it right was part of what excited him about taking the job with the Flyers in the first place. And he wants everybody on board in that process.

"I love the opportunity that we have here to build something from really the ground up," Tortorella said. "We're going to feel more pain, we're going to go through a lot of pain. But when you start feeling that pain, do you change your thinking and panic and readjust how you're going to go about it?

"That's the important part for us in this organization, is just stay with it, no matter how much pain you're going through, stay with it. Because when you get on the other side, that foundation is going to be strong. You're not going to be knee-jerking back and forth. That's the way I'm going about it. If for some reason someone thinks different about it, I'm going to argue. Because I think that's the best way to do it here, is to build it the proper way."

What will it look like? Well, it will probably look a lot like what this season has looked like so far, absent any more 10-game winless streaks. The reality is the Flyers played better overall during that slide than they did to get to their 7-3-2 start. That was a bit of a mirage, and the coaching staff probably knew it at the time. The injury list eventually stretching to include six forwards exacerbated the problem, but that is starting to fix itself - and with it, should generate some more offense. However, what won't change is the coaching staff's insistence on solid fundamental team play and structure. That, in Tortorella's view, is the path forward.

"You get stuck in the mud if you continue to put band-aids on and gimmicks to get people in the building and whatever it is," he said. "You get people in the building and you get it right by winning. And the only way you can win is to build it the proper way. And that's how we're going to go about it."