There were trade rumors floating around Owen Tippett at the start of the season but goals in five of his first six games sort of put a lid on those.
Since then, 10 games to be exact, the Flyers forward has failed to score and it wouldn’t be a big surprise if those whispers started up again.
In this new Rick Tocchet coaching regime, Tippett still seems to be looking for a steady line to call home. He’s been all over the place as the coaching staff tries to find a landing spot to develop chemistry.
Before Thursday’s optional practice at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees, N.J., Tocchet talked about Tippett’s struggles.
It’s not like he’s not generating scoring chances. Just minutes into Wednesday night’s game against Edmonton, Tippett zipped a puck which clanged off the crossbar. That’s just the way it’s been going lately.
“I feel like we have a good relationship,” Tocchet said. “I want to get tighter with him, get in his brain and help him.
“His tools are unreal. So can we piece it together? First or second shift of the game, power shift, he goes in, rings one off the crossbar. That’s elite level but how do we consistently have that where he’s constantly focused in the game?”
Tippett, a 26-year-old who hails from Peterborough, Ontario, came here from Florida in the Claude Giroux trade during the 2021-22 season.
In his first two seasons in Philadelphia he posted 27 and 28 goals. But last year he fell off to just 20. This year’s start was encouraging but now the inconsistency has returned.
“I have to help him,” Tocchet said. “That’s my job. We have to just continue to grow this guy. Because he’s got a lot of tools. It’s on us to hone those skills.”
Tocchet has had Tippett playing with Trevor Zegras and Christian Dvorak on a line for much of the time recently. Even that didn’t seem to solve Tippett’s scoring woes.
In the big picture, is finding a steady spot for Tippett that big of a deal? Some people think so. Tocchet isn’t one of them.
“I’m not sure it’s that (moving from line to line),” Tocchet said. “He’s a really good one-on-one player. I’d like to see some more give-and-go, I think that will help him. A little more engagement in his shifts. I think it’s just a little bit of bad habits over the years and he’s correcting them.
“I think there’s a lot there to like.”
>York’s improvement
Defenseman Cam York continues to play at a high level and the only friction there might be is trying to keep an eye on his ice time.
Playing with Travis Sanheim on the top unit, he’s averaging close to 25 minutes per game.
Some of this enthusiasm might originate from trying to prove that last season’s disappointing performance was an anomaly.
“He’s not showing a ‘chip’ (on his shoulder), but I could tell,” Tocchet said. “I think the commitment by (GM) Danny (Briere) and (president Keith) Jones – he signed a five-year deal, right? – so they know there’s a player there.
“He plays 25 minutes a night and there’s a lot of that in his game. And there’s more there. He knows there are things he has to get better at, you’re going against guys like (Edmonton’s) Connor McDavid, it’s hard to do that every night, so I give him a lot of credit.”
>Cleaning up OT play
The Flyers have lost their last two overtime decisions on what might be termed “mistakes,” so that’s an area Tocchet wants to clean up.
“Three-on-three is about valuing the puck,” the coach said. “If you make good line changes, you have a good shot of being on the right side.
“In the two losses, the changes weren’t great. You have to recognize and hopefully in the next overtime we learn from it.”
>Short shots
The Flyers make a short two-game trip, beginning Friday night in St. Louis before stopping off in Dallas on Saturday night.
Defenseman Adam Ginning has played in only one game since mid-October but hasn’t been returned to Lehigh Valley. Tocchet said he has to find a solution. “We have to figure something out here because we can’t have this guy inactive. I hate having guys sitting a long period of time. (Egor) Zamula is waiting, too.”
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