Rick Tocchet stood in front of the cameras on Monday night after a 4-1 loss in Tampa, four games into a season his Philadelphia Flyers have yet to win, and put the blame squarely on his players.
“We just didn’t compete,” Tocchet said. “There was some pockets there. We came, but not enough compete in this group right now.”
He went further than that, questioning whether the group is taking any of it seriously.
“This team is way too comfortable and they did not compete tonight,” he said.
How bad is the Flyers’ start to the season?
Philadelphia sits at 0-2-2, the franchise’s first four-game winless start since 2014-15. They’ve been outscored 17-5 and outshot 158-76 across those four games, numbers that go some way beyond a slow start.
The skid opened with a 7-0 home loss to Pittsburgh, followed by overtime defeats to New Jersey and Carolina before Monday’s trip to Tampa.
What’s drawing the criticism isn’t the losing so much as the pattern in how Tocchet has explained it. After the opener he said he had no answer and that it was the worst defensive play he’d seen since arriving. After the Devils game he said he had “no idea” why the team was so sloppy. Now it’s the compete level.
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Supporters have noticed, and several pointed to his previous job.
“Exactly the same s*** that he always said in Vancouver when his ‘systems’ weren’t effective and the team sucked,” one wrote.
“This guy is not a good coach. He can get you one good year before he fully implements his systems, and then once he does the team is trash,” another argued.
“Way past the Tocchet expiration date,” a third said, while someone else wondered: “How does this guy keep getting hired?”
Another summed up the mood more bluntly still. “Feels like this guy’s been on the verge of getting fired his entire career.”
Tocchet did take the Flyers to the playoffs last season after they were widely written off in February, going 18-7-1 after the Olympic break and eliminating Pittsburgh in the first round before reaching the second. Four games is also four games.
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