Okay for this new article we’re going to be looking at the styles of the two rumored coaches for the Flyers. You have former Jack Adams winner, former Flyer, three time Stanley Cup champion (once as a player and twice as an assistant) Rick Tocchet. After that the other well rumored coach you have is Pat Ferschweiler. Pat is a former teammate of Keith Jones and most recently National Championship winner with Western Michigan University.
If you’ve spent anytime online recently the vast majority of people do not want another “former Flyer retread” which I personally don’t really view Tocchet as that. There’s a reason he’s a former coach of the year with Vancouver, there’s a reason he has those terrible Arizona teams playing competitive meaningful hockey, and not many coaches get praised by this era’s greatest hockey player in Sidney Crosby.
I’m not here to tell you who I think should be the head coach, that’s for Danny Briere and Keith Jones to decide. What I am here to do is tell you who I think would benefit this Flyers team the most as it’s currently constructed. Mainly who I think would benefit Matvei Michkov’s game the most. Also I should add that 85% of professional coaches are not stuck in their ways. They adapt to what personnel they have and create systems based on that. But what I’m going to review below is just a few examples of how they’re currently coaching their teams’ systems and if they bring that system to the Flyers what it would look like.
Hockey Terminology Guide
Before diving into the analysis, here’s a quick breakdown of some hockey terms I’ll be using throughout this article:
F1, F2, F3 – Refers to the three forwards on the ice. F1 is typically the first forward in on the forecheck, F2 is the second forward providing support, and F3 is the high forward providing defensive coverage.
Gap Control – The space a defenseman allows between themselves and an attacking forward. A “tight gap” means the defenseman is playing close to the attacker, while a “big gap” means they’re giving the attacker more space.
North-South Hockey – A style that emphasizes quick, direct transitions up and down the ice rather than lateral (east-west) movement. Focuses on speed and advancing the puck forward.
Soft Ice – Open areas of the ice where there is less defensive coverage. Players look to find “soft ice” to receive passes and create scoring chances.
Activate/Active D – When defensemen join the offensive rush or move deeper into the offensive zone rather than staying static at the blue line.
Back Support/Backchecking – When forwards hustle back defensively to support their defensemen against an opposing rush.
Forecheck – Pressure applied by the offensive team in the defensive zone to regain possession of the puck.
Rick Tocchet
I have two clips from tweets I’ve tweeted out showing what many have already heard/seen online. Tocchet wants to go north south as quickly as possible. It’s about volume of shots on net with traffic in front. Now I will say this offense is completely different when Norris Trophy winner Quinn Hughes is on the ice. But for 65% of the game he is not on the ice and what a stark difference in play there is.
Clip 1: Zone Entry and Quick Attack
Now in clip 1 that you can see above you’ll notice on the rush for St. Louis the defense pretty much gives St. Louis the zone. Most of the time their gap control (space that the defensemen is conceding to the forwards) is big enough that teams take advantage of this and skate it into the zone relatively untouched. Vancouver was great with recovering the puck and moving it to their forwards as quickly as possible. At this point the forwards on Vancouver start flying out of the zone most of the time as they’re conditioned to exit quickly and attack.
The second part of this clip even once they get into the zone Vancouver does not look to slow it down and wait for help. This forward cuts across (for a change) and once he dishes it off you don’t see changing defensemen helping join the rush. All three Vancouver forwards once in the play like to operate below/in front of the net. A big part of their game was trying to score as quickly as possible.
Clip 2: Net-Front Presence vs. Point Support
In clip 2 you’ll notice that when Pettersson moves the puck to the point no one fills up top. The forwards all crash the net and are looking to bang home a rebound. Personally when you have someone with Elias Pettersson’s skill set if he’s going to move it up to the defensemen you want him coming up to find soft ice or be an option up at the point for a pass. Instead with all three forwards always going towards the front of the net as a defenseman you have two options, 1) shoot low and hope for a deflection or a rebound. Option 2 is a D to D pass in which case they’re also going to have to shoot the puck immediately hoping for a deflection or rebound.
The second part of this clip is what happens most times when Vancouver shoots the puck off that D pass. If the other team retrieves it, like St. Louis did, and since there isn’t a 3rd forward hanging up high to support the D. Immediately the D back out of the zone and give the other team the neutral zone until the back checkers get in a position to help.
Now it’s a two on two with Vancouver having two back checkers for support. These forwards are programmed to wait for their defensemen to win this battle (which 98% of the time NHL defensemen are stopping a two on two) and try and spring the other way. North South is Tocchet’s style.
There isn’t anything wrong with this you just need the players who have the speed and skillset to break plays up and jump up the ice quickly. Where it doesn’t work well is when you get stuck in your zone for long periods of time defending and as soon as you win the puck to get up the ice your forwards are changing preventing you from really going north south efficiently and effectively.
Pat Ferschweiler
Now I must admit outside of watching a few of the NCAA frozen four games I really hadn’t seen Western Michigan play a whole lot. But this game against Miami Ohio really showed me what Ferschweiler preaches at his team to do.
Clip 1: Breakout Support
First clip you’ll see is WMU winning a battle below the goal line. Off the breakout you’ll have their center coming down low for support, the winger also getting low intending to swing back up to the point if needed on a lost battle with the far side winger (Alex Bump in this case) immediately slashing across the middle of the zone which pushes the Miami defenders back immediately. Now this leads to a 2 on 2 (almost 2 on 1) rush but defensive play breaks it up.
Clip 2: F3 Support and Active Defense
Now clip two is where we can compare this more to how Vancouver plays. Immediately after that rush you see a loose puck. You have three WMU players down low and in a lot of situations players would see this as a 3 on 3 down low and they’d try to keep the pressure high on Miami OH while they’re in the O-Zone. However what you’ll see is that immediately the F3 stays high to support allowing F1 and F2 to keep the pressure up. Because F3 takes away the easy breakout pass to the close side winger the defensemen must make a cross ice pass to the far side winger.
Now this is where Ferschweiler is coaching a more modern (Tampa style) game. As soon as that pass is made the defensemen jump immediately on the play because he knows that F3 is right back to cover him. Because the defensemen is active and creating pressure Miami OH is unable to cleanly take possession of the puck and transition to playing offense. In today’s game WMU activates their defensemen who can jump with confidence knowing that F3 is going to fill their position. Even if the defensemen misses it’s not going to lead to an odd man rush since F3 is there.
If you take anything from this clip it’s that WMU makes it incredibly difficult for teams to skate through the neutral zone. They’re not playing some boring neutral zone trap either. They allow their F1 and F2 to forecheck the other teams puck carrier/defensemen.
Clip 3: Active Defense and Structure
The last clip I want to show you is how WMU not only looks to create offense from their defensemen but also how the D aren’t just trying to catch and shoot. They have support from another forward who is skating into soft ice or filling their spot as they move down the wall. First D to D pass leads to a shot and a rebound shot. Rebound goes wide allowing the defensemen to activate down again. F3 fills up as always. Personally this shot selection I don’t believe was ever to hit the net. Most D-men now when “shooting from the boards or a wide angle” are really going wide on purpose in order to change sides. Most of the time it’s an intentional wrap to the other D.
As soon as this puck goes back to the LD a F3 comes up to provide an option allowing for an immediate slip pass to a forward. Now in this case the F3 is pressured up high and turns it over. But because their offense comes from up top/the defensemen or high forwards even off the turnover you have a defensemen, another forward, and a backchecking defensemen who made the original slip pass. This forces the Miami OH player to recognize he has to attack the forward playing back on defense on this 3 on 2. The backchecker catches up allowing the forward to come up and surf him into the boards. With all of the back support this 3 on 2 turns into a 2 on 4 and immediately WMU is slashing across the zone and entering the O-Zone again.
Now that I say all of this I’m not always going to show clips that result in goals. Those do show when the plays work the best. But more times than not you learn more from the plays that don’t result in goals for or against. These repeated habits I saw are how both teams are being coached. You can see it in the way they instinctively play/move with and without the puck.
Impact on Matvei Michkov
Clip 1: Michkov as F3 Making a Play from the Blue Line
Clip 2: Michkov Filling for Defenseman on Power Play
Clip 3: Michkov as Third Forward on the Rush
If you’re a Flyers fan the main question right now is probably “which of these systems is going to help Michkov become the player we all hope he can be?” Watching how he’s played under Torts this year gives us some insight. I found three clips that really show how Michkov operates from that high F3 position, and after watching these I’m convinced that a system that utilizes an active F3 is where his game can reach the next level.
In all three clips I found, you see Michkov making plays from the blue line – either jumping on a loose puck as the F3, filling for a defenseman on a power play and stopping an opposing rush that leads to a goal the other way, or being the third forward on a rush waiting for the play to develop before jumping on the puck and making a great pass. What’s important here is that each clip resulted in a primary assist for Michkov, showing how dangerous he is when given this role.
Michkov’s game reminds me a lot of Nikita Kucherov, who thrives in John Cooper’s Tampa system that has defensemen actively closing plays early and activating in the O-Zone. What makes Kucherov so dangerous is his ability to read the game from multiple positions, not just as a straight-line rush player. Michkov has shown similar instincts.
Looking at these two coaching styles, it’s pretty clear to me that Ferschweiler’s more modern approach with the F3 consistently filling high would benefit Michkov more than Tocchet’s north-south system. Tocchet’s style would have Michkov either crashing the net with other forwards or waiting for a quick transition – neither of which maximizes his elite playmaking ability and hockey IQ.
Ferschweiler’s system, on the other hand, would regularly put Michkov in positions where we’ve seen him excel – reading the play from high in the zone, supporting active defensemen, and using his vision to create offense. The clips I found show that when Michkov plays this role, good things happen for his team.
Does this mean Tocchet couldn’t adapt his system to get the most out of Michkov? Not at all – he’s a proven NHL coach who’s worked with elite talent before. But if we’re looking at which base system would require the least adaptation to maximize our most important young asset, I’d give the edge to Ferschweiler’s modern approach that already incorporates the F3 position where Michkov has shown he can be elite.
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[…] you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’ll know I did a deep dive on Tocchet’s system versus Pat Ferschweiler’s just last week. At the time, I was examining which coach might benefit our current roster – […]