The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Kevin Kurz on the Flyers' Latest Drama

Starting point is 00:00:00 With Alice bring aboard, a good friend, Kevin Kurz, from The Athletic, covering all things Philadelphia Flyers. And Kevin, thanks, as always, for stopping by. Before we get to Couturee and Mitch Cough and the situation with the Philadelphia Flyers right now, kicked off the show by just a couple of words about Mel Bridgman earlier on, the Flyers, you know, first ever first overall pick in 75, Ottawa's first ever general manager. So a little bit of poetry that Saturday it was the Philadelphia Flyers facing off against the Ottawa Senator somewhere Mel Bridgman smiles. Did you have any interactions ever with Mel Bridgman? How is this going? Flyers love their alumni, as we know. How is this resonating through the organization? Yeah, to be honest, he wasn't a guy, I think, that really had all that much notoriety amongst the fan base.

Starting point is 00:00:53 You know, you look at the teams here. It's the Stanley Cup era teams in the 70s. And then it's that young 80s team featuring guys like Dave Pool and Mark Howe, Brian Franhex Ball, Pellie Lindbergh, who is a notable name today too. It's the 40-year anniversary of his fatal crash. Yeah, I don't think Mel Bridgman was a guy that really came up all that often amongst this fan base. But, you know, obviously it's it's a shame to see him to see him pass. that still, it's a fairly, you know, young age. Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:01:30 I'm glad you mentioned Pellie Lindberg as well. You know, there was that rise of like the first wave of European net minders in the NHL. It was tough at first. You know, Hardy Astrum with Colorado, who I thought was really good. He got run out of town, essentially. Marcus Mattson struggled. Yuri Sira struggled. The first one to really establish himself.

Starting point is 00:01:52 And we saw a lot of glimpses of potential greatness was Pali Lindberg. Like, he was poised to be the first superstar European-trained NHL netminder. All derailed, of course, by an alcohol-fueled crash in his, in his Porsche. It was just, first of all, awful for the family, that we think of awful for Flyers fans. But hockey lost a lot when Pelley-Lenberg passed away. Yeah, and it was, it was amazing to me, you know, I don't really, I don't really remember that. I remember Pellie Lindbergh's crash was probably one of my first memories just as a kid, not even as a sports fan. But, you know, in talking to some of these guys, Dave Poole and Al Morgani, who you know, Jeff, is in the hall.

Starting point is 00:02:41 He was covering the team at the time. You know, Pelley became really the fan favorite here very quickly. And part of that is because Mike Keenan, who deserves credit, he went to Pelley. They had lunch before Keenan's first year. He told Pelley, you're my guy. you're my number one goalie. And that was a little bit surprising for Pelly because he had actually struggled the season before.

Starting point is 00:03:01 But he took that ball. He ran with it, wins the Vesna Trophy in 85. And the fans saw in Pelly basically just a younger version of Bernie Perrin, who was obviously beloved here for winning the Stanley Cup in back-to-back years, but also for his personality. You know, they saw Bernie who had the, you know, a little bit of a quirky guy. He's got the accent, the foreign accent, right? The French accent.

Starting point is 00:03:28 Pelly's got the thick Swedish accent. They look the same on the ice, both wearing that white mask, both the stand-up goaltenders. Angles. So, yeah, and, you know, back then in the 80s, it wasn't, you know, now in Philadelphia, it's Eagles, Eagles, Eagles. But back then, the Flyers were arguably the most popular team. You know, those two Stanley Cup championships were not far back in the memories of a lot of those fans. And, you know, Pellie takes them to the Stanley Cup.

Starting point is 00:03:54 Cup finals where they lose to Wayne Gretzky's Oilers. And so I think that's why it still resonates is just because he was really at the height of his popularity. He's a burgeoning star. He's playing a very notable position in this city, as has been the case for 50 years. And I think that's why even today, when Flyers fans of a certain age, and even those younger that didn't ever see him play, like me, frankly, they still hold Pelley Lindberg with a certain amount of reverence.

Starting point is 00:04:23 As they should. To the flyers right now, and I believe it was, might, was it your question to Sean Couturey that, that led to the, I don't know, do we want to call it lambasting, the calling out? I don't even know how I would, I would describe it. How would you describe how we heard Sean Couturey talk about Matvei Michkoff? Yeah, well, just to set the scene here, you know, a few minutes earlier, we had spoke to Michkoff, and he talked about how.

Starting point is 00:04:54 much not scoring has been weighing on him emotionally. And he's been through a lot, right? It's the coming to camp out of shape. It's, it's, it's, it's him admitting, again, moments earlier that he didn't train the best way in the offseason. And to me, that's a, that's a good sign. That's a young player recognizing, hey, here's, I already know what I have to do differently next summer. And, and I think he's somebody that will go ahead and do that. But it was, you know, he has scored the game before in Nashville. He talked about it being a huge weight off of his shoulders. And you could really tell that it was it was affecting him uh not getting on the scoreboard right he's a scorer he wants to score like all of them do yeah well no sean vittorier's the captain i thought

Starting point is 00:05:33 it was i i specifically asked him because he's the captain it's what are you guys doing to to try to get through to matt bay uh to help him through what's obviously been a difficult time for him and that's when he went into his you know his his explanation just about how you know mitchcoff he's got to know that he has to do other things away from the pot and when he doesn't, you know, he's not scoring. And if you look at the last game, so Mitchcoff, I think a lot of fans looked at the game and they saw Mitchcoff score a beautiful goal,

Starting point is 00:06:04 certainly his biggest highlighted season so far. And after that, you could tell that weight was off his shoulders. He was skating faster. He was dynamic. He was as dangerous offensively as he's been all season. But there were also moments in that game that, again, he's got to get out of his game, which I think Cotoria was alluding to.

Starting point is 00:06:20 If you go back and look at the first Ottawa goal and they talked about this yesterday. Tocke talked about this yesterday. Cotorey thought Mitchcoff should have been in the slot guarding Tim Stutzelah, so that goal doesn't happen. Instead, Mitchcoff's cutting up the ice already. And then if you look at the third period, there's a minute and a half left in a two-two game, and Michikov tries this dangerous cross-ice pass through the neutral zone that gets picked off and results in a really good scoring chance for Dillon Cousins. Again, this is a minute and a half left.

Starting point is 00:06:48 You can't do that in that sort of a situation. So, you know, clearly Mitchcoff is still learning that aspect of the game. But, you know, I think a little bit too much was made of Couturey's comments. You know, he was responding to a question specifically about Michikov. He wasn't saying anything that would have sounded out of place coming from Rick Tocket. And as you know, Jeff, obviously, the captain in a lot of respects is an extension of the coaching staff. So that's really what I thought what he was, that's how I took it. There is this sort of element here,

Starting point is 00:07:30 considering this is the sophomore season. And like, look, ask Connor Bittard what that's all about and the pressures that come along with it. I find that there's a lot made about a young player. And I keep reminding myself, you can't have super high expectations for kids. You can't, like, whether you're Conradard or Macklin Sellebrini, now we're all Gaga and rightfully so, I think, about Matthew Schaefer. And this is the kid's second year. And you're going to have growing pains. And a couple of things.

Starting point is 00:08:02 The NHL is a really hard league to play in. And last time I checked, the other team was allowed to try hard to. Like, this is tough. So really, really, I don't care. I don't care what you did overseas. I don't care what you did when you're in junior or what you did in the American League. It's a hard league to play in. It really is.

Starting point is 00:08:20 And I'm not surprised. that there's a frustration that comes along with not scoring from Michkoff. No, and, you know, he's on his second coach in two years now, right? And so Rick Tocket is trying to implement some very specific things offensively, which Travis Sandheim had it told me something a couple days ago in Montreal. He said, basically, we didn't have much of an offensive system before. You know, he's alluding to John Tortorello. It was basically, you know, he wanted, towards obviously wanted the defensemen to get up and be aggressive and all that.

Starting point is 00:08:48 But, you know, Tocke's trying to do some very specific things in the offense. zone. And so, you know, Michkoff, just like everybody else is adjusting to that, but, but obviously Mitchcoff doesn't have any experience to really fall back on. So, you know, that's been a little bit of a problem. And so that's something he can't control. But again, he can control coming into camp in better shape. And that's something that I think has been, has been very, you know, it's, it's, it's obvious now, it's been reporter a few times by me and others. You know, he didn't show up in good enough shape. And so, again, the fact that he admitted that after the, the, the, the, senator's game. And I asked him that question, too, specifically, how do you feel now physically

Starting point is 00:09:28 compared to how you were at the start of the season? And he said, you know, and again, it's through an interpreter, but basically he said it was the first time he took four months off off of hockey in his life. And so training was different. So, you know, he knows next, you know, whether that means he wants to get on the ice sooner next year or or do some different things in the gym. But, you know, that was him admitting that he has to train differently next summer. And again, I give him a lot of credit for having that sort of self-awareness at 20 years old. You know, it's interesting to, you know, once upon time, I remember there was a great line by Scottie Bourne. I can't remember who he was talking to about it. And he was talking

Starting point is 00:10:01 about coaching philosophies for players and how you can't coach every single player the exact same way. And he brought up the example of a 30 goal score. And he said, look, if you have someone that can score you 30 goals, it shouldn't be your job to turn them into a selky trophy candidate. It should be your job to say, this guy can score 30, I'm going to help him score 40. Like something has changed. Like I know that there are certain non-negotiables for every single coach. And a lot of them involve play away from the puck and the defensive side of the puck.

Starting point is 00:10:35 But I really do can't. I always come back to that Bowman, that Bowman quote. If you have a 30 goal scorer, it's your job to make sure that guy gets 40. You accentuate what they're good at. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I don't, you know, when I'm looking at this from Cotorier's perspective, you know, he's been a part of a losing organization for a long time now, right?

Starting point is 00:10:55 I mean, yeah, their team had some success early on. That's not where they're at now. Organizationalally, Danny Breyer has said, we want to win. We want to take the next step forward. So that's different than Breyer's first two years when it was mostly about subtraction. So if you're Sean Cotoria, you know that in order for this team to win games and get to where you want to go, you're going to need Matt Veemichkopf. You're going to need him to take another step.

Starting point is 00:11:18 He's going to have to be a huge part of this, whether it's this year or next year. So, you know, is there a little bit of a frustration there with Gatorier and maybe some of the older veterans when Mietchkoff is making some of these mistakes? I'm sure there is, right? They want to win hockey games. But that's not, you know, and then you see online some of these suggestions that they all hate Matt Bay-Michikoff. I mean, it's, I don't even like mentioning it just because it's so stupid. But, you know, they want to work with him. him, Katori wants to work with him.

Starting point is 00:11:50 You know, maybe there's a little bit of frustration because of the way he came to camp and because of how much he has struggled early on and he is still making some mistakes that he probably shouldn't be making as much as he has been, frankly. But, you know, they want to win games. They need Matt Bay-Michikov to be not perfect defensively, but certainly you have to do certain things like, you know, not throw a cross-ice pass with a minute and a half left to their neutral zone in a 2-2 game. I'm going to try right now, Kevin, not to make this sound pretentious, but here I go.

Starting point is 00:12:25 I kind of look at putting teams together like art in one specific way. You're either doing sculpture or your painting. Sculpture is art by subtraction and painting is art by addition. Are they done with the art by subtraction now, or is that still ongoing? Geez, that's really deep, Jeff. Well, it is Monday, 2 o'clock Eastern. I mean, you know, I think that's too early to say because, or too early to say one way or the other,

Starting point is 00:12:59 because we have to see how this season goes, right? You know, they're 8, 5, and 2. Yeah. That's probably a little bit better than maybe some expected them to be. It's, you've seen the standings, right? Everybody sees the standings, how fully, pack to everyone is. They've had a lot of their games at home. Mostly they've been at home, so we'll see how they grind through some road games. But, you know, the hope, obviously,

Starting point is 00:13:26 is that they don't want to subtract anymore. That's something that both Danny Breyer and Keith Jones have said. They don't want to find themselves in a position where they're selling off assets at the trade deadline just for, you know, future draft picks or prospects. They hope that is it over with. And, you know, the one guy I look at that'll be a real litmus test for that is Christian Dvorak, who is a pretty good center. He's a 200-foot player. He wins face-offs. He penalty kills. I mean, he's basically the textbook definition of a player that a lot of contending teams might be looking for at the deadline, right? And the flyers overpaid to get him. He's making, I think, $5 million, which is too much for a player of his caliber. But, you know,

Starting point is 00:14:06 it made sense for the flyers because they needed another center. So that, he's going to be the guy for me that we're, you know, if, if you start hearing his name in trade rumors in January, February, and that'll probably, you know, that probably mean two things. The flyers aren't very good and they're looking to still unload players for future assets. But, you know, if they're in the playoff mix come March 1st, yeah, Devorak and everybody else, I feel like they'll hang on to them and keep them together. I could have just asked you if the rebuild is done, but I respect you. too much. So I had to go with the pretentious art analogy. Let me, let me close on this. Trevor Zegris, anything on an extension, because it seems like he is in a different

Starting point is 00:14:54 headspace altogether and a different performance space altogether. I mean, I think there's still elements of like youthful exuberance, rather, with Trevor Zegris, but already like with one trade, he's a much more. mature player from me watching from the comforts of my couch. You're right there. You can color this one in better than I can. Yeah, and I actually did talk to him a little bit yesterday, and I haven't gotten around to writing it or tweeting about it yet. But, you know, I asked him about the contract

Starting point is 00:15:24 extension stuff, and he says, you know, he hasn't thought about it yet. And it's, you know, it's unique to note or the throat. Yeah. But, you know, the notable part of it to me is, so I go back to the game in Montreal where he had his 200th point, was it 200th point, I guess, yeah, 200th point in their assist or whatever it was. And he was asked, how much does it mean to you to get to any, and he said, well, it means, it means more because it was Cam York who scored the goal, right? That's his best friend. And, you know, he went, he went and started talking about how coming to the rink every

Starting point is 00:15:57 day is great, the energy in the rink. And that's partially because he's got some good friends in that room, Cam York, Jamie Driesdale from Anaheim, even Christian Dvorak he was friends with, because he knows him through Cole Caulfield. So I think right away, he felt more himself and he enjoys the atmosphere of that dressing room every day. But he had nothing but a fuse of praise for the organization as a whole, top to bottom. And, you know, I asked him, well, what's important to you when you make those decisions about your future?

Starting point is 00:16:27 And, you know, not surprisingly, he said winning, I want to win. And that was really the only thing he mentioned. So, you know, we'll see. was, it was, you know, there was some cliche answers there, which didn't surprise me, but I do think he enjoys it here. I think he's made that clear. I really think he's done all the right things and said all the right things since he's gotten here. And, you know, so far from Danny Breyer's perspective, it looks like a home run. And, you know, we'll see if some of this extension talk starts to pick up a little bit. Absolutely. Listen, thanks for bringing up with my

Starting point is 00:16:58 annoying questions. You're great. Thanks a much forever. For sharing your expertise with us on all of it. Keep poking the bear and getting those great quotes out of Sean Couturier. Great job. We'll catch up soon. Thanks, my friend. There he is. Kevin Kurz from the athletic covering the Philadelphia Flyers. I spent 16 hours last night every day this week, every day this month.

Starting point is 00:17:28 I can't get out my head. Lost all ambitious day-to-day because you can call it all right. To the dark man You're trying to give me a little medicine I'm like now and that's fine I'm not against those methods but new It's me and myself

Starting point is 00:17:49 And how this is going to be fixing my mind I do on the bracket I turned on the music I turned on the music I do want the bag of I turn it on the music Bixing up

Starting point is 00:18:04 Bail Bail Bucing you Sometimes losing I've been on the days that went wrong

The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Kevin Kurz on the Flyers' Latest Drama

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