It was far from the game that moved usually calm public address legend Lou Nolan to scold the Wells Fargo Center faithful back in 2016.
That was a playoff game against Alex Ovechkin’s Capitals, which would result unsurprisingly in a blowout loss for the home team.
Unfortunately for both teams, the Flyers’ brass at the time thought it a good idea to hand out glow-in-the-dark wristband “bracelets” to all fans with IQs 14-and-over … and despite the lights being turned on, it would indeed be a dark night in there.
So the fans hit the concession stands and were glowing early, but they didn’t warm to the game when their heroes fell far behind early to the Caps.
So those glowing bracelets came flying down to the ice, such an atrocity that even laid-back Lou lost it a bit at the microphone. He chewed out the fans, a striking moment that was soon celebrated with orange T-shirt giveaways with Lou’s picture and a “Stay Classy Philly!” message.
Priceless. The fans didn’t throw them away.
Almost nine years later, those days of playoffs won and mostly lost are fading fast in Flyers fans’ memories, and don’t seem likely to return anytime soon. But take heart, because a game Saturday represented the debut of former top prospect Cutter Gauthier at the WFC … even if he was playing for the other guys.
So Gauthier, a 20-year-old Anaheim Ducks rookie, was greeted by f-bomb chants galore, and at other points was quite literally the shouted butt of fan punchlines. It wasn’t enough to tick off the man with the P.A. mic, but those Stay Classy T-shirts might make a comeback soon.
After all, the resultant 6-0 victory over the Ducks was finally a Flyers game to shout about.
“It is what it is,” Gauthier said after the humiliating Ducks loss. “You know, the media likes to say some things and rehash some things but I can’t control anything or what any other people say.”
Either way, Gauthier sort-of blaming the media for hyping this fan firestorm was more or less supported by the man who couldn’t be his coach, John Tortorella.
“I think it’s a bunch of bull … .,” Tortorella said about all things Gauthier. “All I told our team is, ‘Let’s worry about ourselves and play a good hockey game.’ The bull … , all the drama, that’s for you guys.”
Right. This from a head coach who has a history of excelling at the art of verbal gamesmanship with opposing coaches during the playoffs. Not that he’s had the chance to show that lately.
Either way, maybe Tortorella just didn’t want to address Gauthier’s past, how he was a No. 5 overall Flyers draft pick in 2022, and wound up treating them like Eric Lindros treated the Quebec Nordiques more than 30 years earlier.
The Nordiques traded Lindros a year later — um, to both the Rangers and Flyers, but hey, that’s another old story.
As for Gauthier, despite repeated attempts by the Flyers’ likeable front office faces, he insisted on not signing with them. So he was finally traded last year to Anaheim for defenseman Jamie Drysdale and a 2025 second-round pick.
While the Flyers went to great pains to praise Drysdale’s talents then, leave it to Tortorella to be a bit more honest.
First, Torts pointed out how Drysdale hasn’t cut it (pun intended) as a power play quarterback, though he did get an assist on a Morgan Frost power play goal Monday night against Florida.
“We just haven’t had people do the job there as far as running the power play,” Tortorella said before that game. “We’re hoping Jamie gets better at it. We felt we screwed up (Travis Sanheim’s) game there and took him off.”
Sanheim is more of a two-way defender, but in Drysdale, Tortorella says he wants to turn him into a “rover.”
Hopefully that reference means a blue line guy that frequently jumps into the offensive play rather than one only fetching the puck.
“I don’t think we should try to turn Jamie into this ultimate defender,” Tortorella said. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t think he’s big enough. I think when you have a player like him, you look at his strengths; his skating, how he can maneuver laterally (and) forward.
“The thing we continue to monitor and look to see him get better at is seeing the ice. … It’s a very hard thing to coach. But if he’s going to be the rover that I’d like to see him be, that’s the key part of his game that I’d like to see him improve.”
All well and good, but any “rover” should certainly be expected to sniff out how to run a power play. It should be in his DNA. Tortorella seems to think that about Drysdale … even if he might be doing so with a little optimism underscoring the words.
“I think he makes a great read the other night on his goal,” Tortorella said of Drysdale, who scored against the Ducks for his second goal and ninth point in his 31st game of the season. “When he doesn’t have the puck (there), he doesn’t dish it off, he keeps joining the rush; he joins in and scores a goal. Sometimes seeing the ice as a defenseman, it’s not always when you have (the puck), it’s when you don’t have it. What holes you jump into. I think that’s a work in progress.”
Drysdale, a No. 6 overall pick from 2020, is said by Tortorella to be not big enough at 5-11, 185 to be the kind of elite defender that can control the flow of a game. But he’s only 22, and while saying Drysdale was “raw when we got him,” he ends the evaluation on an upbeat note.
“He’s improved,” Tortorella said. “We’re going to keep on pushing him.”
And maybe the fans can come up with a chant that helps push him along, too.
Contact Rob Parent at rparent@delcotimes.com
Source: Berkshire mont
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