Tortorella: Flyers ‘don’t have the balls’ for Playoff-Style Games

Despite being fully aware of the stakes well ahead of time, the Philadelphia Flyers inexcusably no-showed for Monday night’s playoff-esque matchup with the New York Islanders, losing 4-3, in overtime.

Morgan Frost scored the game-tying goal with 9.6 seconds left in the third period, though his turnover graciously gifted Brock Nelson and New York the overtime winner.

The soul-crushing mistake was just a microcosm of the Flyers’ shortcomings in this game, and head coach John Tortorella put the group on blast, letting his feelings be known.

Make no mistake about it; these were no happy or encouraging feelings.

“Soft,” Tortorella stammered angrily. “One guy played – the goalie.”

Ivan Fedotov is the goalie in question. The 27-year-old made his Flyers debut and NHL debut, coming into the game at the start of the second period in relief of Sam Ersson.

Ersson allowed two goals on six total shots after Noah Cates had put the Flyers up 1-0 inside the game’s first five minutes.

“Terrific,” Tortorella said of Fedotov, getting progressively more frustrated with each word he spoke. “He’s the only guy that played.

“You’re finding things out here, okay, when these games are a whole different plane. It’s still regular season, right? But it’s a whole different plane. So we’re finding things out.”

What is it that Tortorella and the Flyers are finding out, exactly?

“There are certain people that don’t have a clue how to play,” Tortorella explained. “Or just don’t have it in them to play in these types of situations. This is why I’m glad we’re playing, because we have to figure things out, as far as what we’re going to become as a team here.

“That was an embarrassing second period for the Philadelphia Flyer uniform, the way we played. Embarrassing. High marks as far as how we came back in the third period. Some guys.”

And then Tortorella hammered home the nail in the coffin, dismissing fatigue or lack of rest as an excuse.

“If you don’t have the balls to play in these types of games, rest doesn’t do us any good.”

The Flyers are still in a playoff spot, for now. Detroit and Washington are closely lurking with games in hand.

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