[Andy & Rono] If the season ended today, John Tortorella should win the Jack Adams Trophy to be honest. The Flyers are so strong at 5-on-5, have the best PK. Also you can see here how they’re missing high-end players in offense.
If the season ended today, John Tortorella should win the Jack Adams Trophy to be honest. The Flyers are so strong at 5-on-5, have the best PK. Also you can see here how they're missing high-end players in offense. https://t.co/bZ3DlVW0j3 pic.twitter.com/TfEmdpCsHL
— Andy & Rono (@ARHockeyStats) December 18, 2023
by seeldoger47
7 Comments
If they make the playoffs Tortorella will be a finalist, he has to be. This team had very little expectations other than a bottom 5 team, it’s impressive because of the ways they have won.
One night it’s the offense, the next night it’s the defense, and another the goalie. What makes this awesome is the fact 9 of our players are under the age of 24 who are currently on the roster.
imagine these guys if they get the powerplay crackalackin. i dont know what theyre doing in lehigh thats so different, its like they do a hybrid 1-3-1 and if it doesnt work they shift to 3-2 and its that kind of fluidity that we’re missing right now, nobodys calling audibles.
i have a tinfoil hat theory that the coaching staff is holding back on the PP and purposefully deploying the wrong schemes and lines so when we make the playoffs nobody knows how to defend it. I just dont understand how its this bad right now and the phantoms who are a bottom conference team have the best PP in the AHL.
as far as torts goes I think its hard to argue that theres any coach this year more deserving of the jack adams at least right now, some of these replacement coaches recently might end up with a crazy record though so its gonna be interesting
There are certainly other coaches who will have strong cases too, but I really struggle to see how Torts couldn’t be the front runner at this point. Often times teams that far overperform expectations have a leg up in the Jack Adams conversation to begin with, for better or worse. But Tortorella doesn’t even have the advantage of “Well, this team sucked lately so they added a few blue chip prospects that the voters underestimated.” Neither of the difference-making draft picks from our ugly 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons are on the roster. One will probably get a few weeks worth of games in the spring, and one isn’t getting here for years.
We didn’t go hunting for win-now trades or free agents. Aside for key players coming back from injury, this team had every opportunity to be as bad or worse than the 2022-23 squad. And yet, Tortorella has them playing outstanding hockey.
Who knows how long it lasts, who knows whether or not it’s a net positive or negative for the long-term vision, but there’s no denying that Torts has an incredible case for coach of the year.
I agree. I was wondering when this was going to start being talked about. Can’t believe how well he has done as the coach developing this team.
He has this team playing hard and with passion for the first time in years. No country club in that locker room.
I would love to see Torts win, most years the Jack Adams goes to whichever coach of a weak team on paper got the best PDO luck. But with Torts this year, you can point to actual concrete things he did:
– turned Ristolainen into, at worst, a net neutral player who can use his size and fluid skating to effectively defend
– built a modern 4th line out of the worst contract on the team and two guys from the FA scrap pile
– worked with the GM to identify the core players to remove, and the ones to retain
– turned one of the worst defenses in the league to a fringe top 5 unit by simply doing the pruning I mentioned above and adding Sean “Some Guy” Walker
– completely overhauled his team’s offensive philosophy to utilize the rush chance potency of guys like Konecny, Tippett and Farabee
Off the top of my head the other strong cases would be Montgomery for keeping Boston in the elite class despite all their YoY losses, and Tocchet making the Canucks relevant again. But Montgomery is getting the best goaltending in the league by a wide margin, and Tocchet is riding the highest shooting% in the league against the weakest schedule (so far). I’m biased of course, but I think Torts case is way better than those two guys.
Honestly with how they are playing this season, Comcast should put a nice financial package to get Michkov over here for next year, along with Gauthier being done with college after this season, and go for the cup. (is this the most prudent thing, no, but they’re legit a couple stars away from being a contender this season with how they are playing)
Earlier this week I saw a post in The Athletic about all the writers picks for each division and award winner.
Torts was not one of the 20 coaches who got a vote for Jack Adams. Makes no sense.
Right now he should absolutely be nominated.