Babajingo
Registered User
The team needs accountability all year. bunch of no contact/no effort clowns. Torts would, at least, expose the ones who don't care.
NHL 2024- 2025 Out of Town III: Philly fires Torts
- Thread starter Gee Wally
- Start date
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Therick67
Registered User
these guys couldn't handle Bruce Cassidy being mean to them, Torts might make them cry..
RiverbottomChuck
Registered User
Fortunately Gryz, Coyle and Debrusk aren't here to complain anymore.
DKH
Awful takes/ Fraudulent Insider
- Feb 27, 2002
- 73,953
- 51,362
You grow up around here you attend a state college you deal with people stealing your mobile orders at Dunks. Torts understands what a masshole is. He’s won a Cup he’s called out the Sedins
Sacco HC
Kelly
torts
Leach
Goalie Bob
- Oct 31, 2007
- 17,819
- 16,601
Let's go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(and before anyone shoots me for suggesting he come here, I'm talking about the dead cat bounce for Philly to close out the season on a tear).
- Oct 31, 2007
- 17,819
- 16,601
I literally just posted in the GDT thread from last night that the keep Sacco posts kind of piss me off.
Please Dan, give me a legitimate reason for Sacco. I'm open to legitimate arguments.
But for the love of God .......... I do not care that he's a f***ing local boy. Not. One. Bit.
I'm a f***ing local boy.
EDIT: If you are joking about this, please send me a DM telling me so. I'm too fragile for this shit right now.
Deal Law
Your NOL is HUGE! But can you use it?
Wow. Just goes to show you how little the "fans" down here care about the Flyers. No one is talking about this that I have seen/heard in SE PA this morning. Then again, these people only care about non-Eagles teams when they're winning.
Over the volcano
Registered User
Philly is just clearing out the office for when Sacco becomes available.
RiverbottomChuck
Registered User
You're probably right but I feel like I willfully omit that for my own sanity.
RiverbottomChuck
Registered User
I've always felt Pennsylvania and Florida were very similar culturally with how the fans are with sports. Die hard college and pro football fans that will literally die/put someone on a t-shirt for their pro football team or college team while being the epitome of fair weather fan with every other sport.
I liked him when he came into the league, but over the years my respect for him as a person/captain has diminished.
Even so, one of the two greatest offensive players of his generation, and in NHL history,
33
March 27, 2025Updated 10:53 am EDT
Years before it became obvious that Alex Ovechkin was going to smash the NHL’s all-time goals record, he had an unbroken five-season run leading the league in power-play goals.
The 101 pucks he pumped home with the man advantage over that stretch, from 2012-13 to 2016-17, prompted opponents to significantly adjust how they gameplanned around him. And how the Washington Capitals superstar adjusted back offers a pretty good window into why he now finds himself knocking at history’s door.
“His game, it really changed within that period because teams started on the penalty kill just standing a guy by him,” former Capitals coach Todd Reirden tells The Athletic. “The penalty kills were just saying, ‘OK, if we’re going to lose, we’re not losing to him.'”
Except Ovechkin didn’t stand idly by and allow that to happen.
As Reirden recalls it, Ovechkin noticed the then-assistant coach putting his defenseman through a drill where they were one-timing pucks and inquired about joining in. Before long, they found themselves regularly working on expanding the area where Ovechkin could get his lethal shot off in the offensive zone as a way to combat the man-to-man coverage.
“He used to always be on the top of the circle in that area where his office was for the one-timer,” Reirden says. “So moving him higher and lower, and kind of expanding his wheelhouse, I thought he grew a lot in the time we were there. He adapted so that he could still one-time pucks and ‘pure’ them (catch and release them cleanly) or catch them at 100 miles an hour, but with the unique trajectory of his puck.”
What might be most instructive about that anecdote is how driven Ovechkin was to find new ways of breaking through and how receptive he was to taking suggestions from a coach who didn’t have a playing resume remotely close to his own. Before stepping behind the bench, Reirden was a well-traveled defenseman who appeared in 183 NHL games and scored 11 goals — 878 fewer than Ovechkin sits at today.
“No one can shoot the puck like him or score the goals that he has, but if you gave him some little tidbit that can help him score another goal, then he’s all in,” Reirden says.
Alex Ovechkin and Todd Reirden in 2020. (Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
Barry Trotz was a former defenseman who didn’t advance beyond the WHL as a player but observed a similarly malleable tendency in Ovechkin after being hired to coach the Capitals in 2014.
They sat down together for the first time over a dinner in Las Vegas. Trotz arrived with 40 ice-breaking questions designed to get to know his star player better. That kicked off a four-year run where Ovechkin added 185 goals to his career total and culminated with an epic Stanley Cup raise at T-Mobile Arena in June 2018 — not far from where they first broke bread.
Along the way, Trotz found Ovechkin to be the rare superstar who didn’t mind hearing criticism. He also observed a transformation where the captain took measurable strides in his preparation, focus and buy-in while feeling the increased strain of Washington struggling to get over the hump.
“There were times that we would butt heads a little bit,” Trotz says. “But the thing that I was impressed with Ovi, he’s always had that passion and love. Not only for the game, but for life.
“He could take hard coaching, and that’s very, very unique. Players of his magnitude sometimes go ‘pffft’ because they’re not used to it, but he could take it. You could be really subtle with it and one-on-one, you could be in the film room or you could be in the group.
“You could challenge him and he’d go, ‘Yeah, you’re right, and I’ll get it done.”‘
That can-do attitude was evident right from his early days in the league. Ovechkin scored twice in his first NHL game in October 2005 and rocketed to a 52-goal rookie campaign — exceeding even the highest of expectations reserved for a No. 1 draft pick.
“It’s really hard to paint the picture, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t like you were dealing with a junior hockey player,” Glen Hanlon, his first Capitals coach, told NHL.com recently. “There was something about him that he was ready for the moment.”
Bruce Boudreau took over early in Ovechkin’s third NHL season and found him to be the “perfect superstar.” A player who was seemingly oblivious to outside criticism or commentary, and one who continued to show a zest for life even as the spotlight grew.
By the time Trotz arrived in Washington — following stints by Dale Hunter and Adam Oates behind the bench — he discovered a player well on his way to the coveted 500-goal milestone but one unlike he’d ever encountered before.
“Coming from Russia, where every Russian was a little bit quiet, and yet this guy wasn’t,” Trotz says. “He was loud and noisy and unique, and your eyes were on him. To this day, your eyes are always on him. He’s got that ‘it.’ That ‘it’ is pretty special.”
Across the long expanse of time, there have been numerous NHL players who have used their size to dominate a game or their shot to fool goaltenders. But Trotz doesn’t think there has ever been a single player who combined those attributes in the manner Ovechkin has.
When you couple that with a force of will that has seen him only rarely sidelined by injury — “He’s a guy that just doesn’t stop,” said former coach Peter Laviolette — while continuing to find unmatched joy in the goal-scoring success of teammates, not just his own, then you can start to understand why those who have watched Ovechkin closest believe he’s put himself in position to surpass a Wayne Gretzky record that was once universally thought unassailable.
“It’s a great life lesson for anybody: If you enjoy what you’re doing, you’re always going to be better at it,” Reirden says. “It hasn’t always been perfect for him, and he’s gone through times when we had to work through slumps. We’ve done different things to get through slumps during that six years (working together).
“He’s very, very coachable and wants to do anything to get better.”
What You Should Read Next
How many goals does Alex Ovechkin have? Capitals great now 6 away from Wayne Gretzky’s record
We're tracking Ovechkin's pursuit of Gretzky's goal record and trying to determine the game in which he's most likely to break the record.
It’s somewhat telling that the Ovechkin goals most appreciated by his coaches are ones that won’t end up counting toward a record-setting total. Trotz remembers one he scored against Tampa Bay in the 2018 Eastern Conference final most fondly. Reirden’s favorite goal is the “goal” Ovechkin set to become the first Russian captain to win a Stanley Cup before doing it.
Alex Ovechkin hands the Stanley Cup to Barry Trotz in 2018. (Isaac Brekken / Getty Images)
In hindsight, that championship may have freed him up for the torrid run that’s come since.
Trotz believes the weight of not having a championship was a massive burden for Ovechkin. Since celebrating with the Stanley Cup in a D.C. fountain and blowing out the candles on his 33rd birthday cake, he’s scored another 281 goals and now sits six shy of breaking Gretzky’s record.
“When I met him, he was frustrated that he didn’t have a Cup, and I said ‘You’re not going to be defined by a Cup. Think of all the kids that wanted to be Alexander Ovechkin, all of the people that pay to watch Alexander Ovechkin,'” Trotz says. “Because he’s different. You never saw anything like this before.
“He’s past a generational talent. You might not see another one.”
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Geoff Burke / Imagn Images, John McCreary / NHLI, Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
Even so, one of the two greatest offensive players of his generation, and in NHL history,
The ‘very, very coachable’ Alex Ovechkin: Former coaches on the tweaks he’s made on the way to history
Chris Johnston33
March 27, 2025Updated 10:53 am EDT
Years before it became obvious that Alex Ovechkin was going to smash the NHL’s all-time goals record, he had an unbroken five-season run leading the league in power-play goals.
The 101 pucks he pumped home with the man advantage over that stretch, from 2012-13 to 2016-17, prompted opponents to significantly adjust how they gameplanned around him. And how the Washington Capitals superstar adjusted back offers a pretty good window into why he now finds himself knocking at history’s door.
“His game, it really changed within that period because teams started on the penalty kill just standing a guy by him,” former Capitals coach Todd Reirden tells The Athletic. “The penalty kills were just saying, ‘OK, if we’re going to lose, we’re not losing to him.'”
Except Ovechkin didn’t stand idly by and allow that to happen.
As Reirden recalls it, Ovechkin noticed the then-assistant coach putting his defenseman through a drill where they were one-timing pucks and inquired about joining in. Before long, they found themselves regularly working on expanding the area where Ovechkin could get his lethal shot off in the offensive zone as a way to combat the man-to-man coverage.
“He used to always be on the top of the circle in that area where his office was for the one-timer,” Reirden says. “So moving him higher and lower, and kind of expanding his wheelhouse, I thought he grew a lot in the time we were there. He adapted so that he could still one-time pucks and ‘pure’ them (catch and release them cleanly) or catch them at 100 miles an hour, but with the unique trajectory of his puck.”
What might be most instructive about that anecdote is how driven Ovechkin was to find new ways of breaking through and how receptive he was to taking suggestions from a coach who didn’t have a playing resume remotely close to his own. Before stepping behind the bench, Reirden was a well-traveled defenseman who appeared in 183 NHL games and scored 11 goals — 878 fewer than Ovechkin sits at today.
“No one can shoot the puck like him or score the goals that he has, but if you gave him some little tidbit that can help him score another goal, then he’s all in,” Reirden says.
Alex Ovechkin and Todd Reirden in 2020. (Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
Barry Trotz was a former defenseman who didn’t advance beyond the WHL as a player but observed a similarly malleable tendency in Ovechkin after being hired to coach the Capitals in 2014.
They sat down together for the first time over a dinner in Las Vegas. Trotz arrived with 40 ice-breaking questions designed to get to know his star player better. That kicked off a four-year run where Ovechkin added 185 goals to his career total and culminated with an epic Stanley Cup raise at T-Mobile Arena in June 2018 — not far from where they first broke bread.
Along the way, Trotz found Ovechkin to be the rare superstar who didn’t mind hearing criticism. He also observed a transformation where the captain took measurable strides in his preparation, focus and buy-in while feeling the increased strain of Washington struggling to get over the hump.
“There were times that we would butt heads a little bit,” Trotz says. “But the thing that I was impressed with Ovi, he’s always had that passion and love. Not only for the game, but for life.
“He could take hard coaching, and that’s very, very unique. Players of his magnitude sometimes go ‘pffft’ because they’re not used to it, but he could take it. You could be really subtle with it and one-on-one, you could be in the film room or you could be in the group.
“You could challenge him and he’d go, ‘Yeah, you’re right, and I’ll get it done.”‘
That can-do attitude was evident right from his early days in the league. Ovechkin scored twice in his first NHL game in October 2005 and rocketed to a 52-goal rookie campaign — exceeding even the highest of expectations reserved for a No. 1 draft pick.
“It’s really hard to paint the picture, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t like you were dealing with a junior hockey player,” Glen Hanlon, his first Capitals coach, told NHL.com recently. “There was something about him that he was ready for the moment.”
Bruce Boudreau took over early in Ovechkin’s third NHL season and found him to be the “perfect superstar.” A player who was seemingly oblivious to outside criticism or commentary, and one who continued to show a zest for life even as the spotlight grew.
By the time Trotz arrived in Washington — following stints by Dale Hunter and Adam Oates behind the bench — he discovered a player well on his way to the coveted 500-goal milestone but one unlike he’d ever encountered before.
“Coming from Russia, where every Russian was a little bit quiet, and yet this guy wasn’t,” Trotz says. “He was loud and noisy and unique, and your eyes were on him. To this day, your eyes are always on him. He’s got that ‘it.’ That ‘it’ is pretty special.”
Across the long expanse of time, there have been numerous NHL players who have used their size to dominate a game or their shot to fool goaltenders. But Trotz doesn’t think there has ever been a single player who combined those attributes in the manner Ovechkin has.
When you couple that with a force of will that has seen him only rarely sidelined by injury — “He’s a guy that just doesn’t stop,” said former coach Peter Laviolette — while continuing to find unmatched joy in the goal-scoring success of teammates, not just his own, then you can start to understand why those who have watched Ovechkin closest believe he’s put himself in position to surpass a Wayne Gretzky record that was once universally thought unassailable.
“It’s a great life lesson for anybody: If you enjoy what you’re doing, you’re always going to be better at it,” Reirden says. “It hasn’t always been perfect for him, and he’s gone through times when we had to work through slumps. We’ve done different things to get through slumps during that six years (working together).
“He’s very, very coachable and wants to do anything to get better.”
What You Should Read Next
How many goals does Alex Ovechkin have? Capitals great now 6 away from Wayne Gretzky’s record
We're tracking Ovechkin's pursuit of Gretzky's goal record and trying to determine the game in which he's most likely to break the record.
It’s somewhat telling that the Ovechkin goals most appreciated by his coaches are ones that won’t end up counting toward a record-setting total. Trotz remembers one he scored against Tampa Bay in the 2018 Eastern Conference final most fondly. Reirden’s favorite goal is the “goal” Ovechkin set to become the first Russian captain to win a Stanley Cup before doing it.
Alex Ovechkin hands the Stanley Cup to Barry Trotz in 2018. (Isaac Brekken / Getty Images)
In hindsight, that championship may have freed him up for the torrid run that’s come since.
Trotz believes the weight of not having a championship was a massive burden for Ovechkin. Since celebrating with the Stanley Cup in a D.C. fountain and blowing out the candles on his 33rd birthday cake, he’s scored another 281 goals and now sits six shy of breaking Gretzky’s record.
“When I met him, he was frustrated that he didn’t have a Cup, and I said ‘You’re not going to be defined by a Cup. Think of all the kids that wanted to be Alexander Ovechkin, all of the people that pay to watch Alexander Ovechkin,'” Trotz says. “Because he’s different. You never saw anything like this before.
“He’s past a generational talent. You might not see another one.”
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Geoff Burke / Imagn Images, John McCreary / NHLI, Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
Last edited:
KnightofBoston
Registered User
that clown shouldve been fired after he totally saw and let go the slewfoot on acciari in game 5 of the 2019 finals
BruinsFan37
Registered User
- Jun 26, 2015
- 1,597
- 1,700
I'm not sure torts (specifically) is the right answer. Philly players seemed to have tuned him out almost immediately and he never reached the playoffs there.
The Bruins do however need a discipline-minded coach though.
The Bruins do however need a discipline-minded coach though.
Penguins stink! I could still see best case scenario Seattle, Buffalo, and Philadelphia passing us.
Realistically though, let's say 1 passes us we end up 7th overall. If we stayed there I'd take Desnoyers if he stays or Martone if he slips as a winger and not a C.
Worst case we'd slip to 9th in that scenario. If that happens I'd honestly take either McQueen or O Brien
Realistically though, let's say 1 passes us we end up 7th overall. If we stayed there I'd take Desnoyers if he stays or Martone if he slips as a winger and not a C.
Worst case we'd slip to 9th in that scenario. If that happens I'd honestly take either McQueen or O Brien
Clint Eastwood
Eff the Habs
- Nov 11, 2018
- 4,799
- 8,788
Flyers doing a solid and beating the Habs. Habs starting to hit a slump, hoping this is the start of their descent out of the playoffs.
BostonBob
4 Ever The Greatest
quietbruinfan
Salt and light
Mixed results on the tank tonight. I would rather the Habs got a point or two. No matter, we will lose all but one or two of our games. Let the ping pong balls fall where they may.
Last edited:
22Brad Park
Registered User
haha you reminded me of my friend Billy at the legion( drinks) telling another friend of mine, I am going over to the pizza shop soon to pick up my order I put in and head home.So my other friend got there first and said yea order for Billy and took it home
He was wild he had to reorder and wait lol
22Brad Park
Registered User
Philly and Buffalo winning was fine by me.Bruins are not winning many more .
Bruinaura
Resident Cookie Monster
- Mar 29, 2014
- 46,382
- 90,687
I'm not an Ovechkin fan but I'll give him credit for this
Aeroforce
Registered User
I follow the Flyers as a secondary team, and like Torts. However, when I read someone on the Flyers' board refer to him as "Fonzie," I LOL'd.
Have Brad Shaw and Keith Jones been seen in the same room at the same time?
Bizarre situation in the Flyers' game against the Habs, as Cam York was benched the entire game, after being benched two periods in their previous game.
Boucher tried to explain that they didn't have a call-up so couldn't healthy scratch him? The new coach said he was benched for disciplinary reasons; but why make him sit there the whole game, in uniform?
Have Brad Shaw and Keith Jones been seen in the same room at the same time?
Bizarre situation in the Flyers' game against the Habs, as Cam York was benched the entire game, after being benched two periods in their previous game.
Boucher tried to explain that they didn't have a call-up so couldn't healthy scratch him? The new coach said he was benched for disciplinary reasons; but why make him sit there the whole game, in uniform?
quietbruinfan
Salt and light
And you thoughts Torts was bad with the benchings lol. I have never thought York got the most from his talent, but did not think he was one to infuriate his coach either.
