Friday Forecheck: Tippett Coming into His Own

Each Friday on PhiladelphiaFlyers.com, we will feature a compendium of news, thoughts and analysis written by contributing writer Bill Meltzer. Here's a look at the club over the most recent stretch that saw the team settle for one point in a home 4-3 overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes and 1-0 OT defeat by the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden before suffering a 5-2 regulation road loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

1. 'Tip' of the Iceberg
Flyers right winger Owen Tippett has always been a player whose appeal lies in his collection of natural abilities. He's got good size (6-foot-1, 207 pounds) but also is an above-average skater. Although it has not yet manifested itself in consistent NHL production in nearly the same way it did at lower levels, Tippett also possesses a heavy shot and the ability to fire off the puck quickly.
The first month of Tippett's 2022-23 regular season was interrupted by a suspected concussion that he sustained late in the first period on opening night against the New Jersey Devils. After missing the rest of the opener and the next four games, Tippett returned for the Oct. 27 game against Florida.
Since his return, Tippett has notched a pair of goals (both on the power play), one assist at 5-on-5, and 10 shots on goal in four games. It's gratifying to see the points coming for him because the Flyers desperately need scoring sources and also because he's lacked little for scoring chances in his still-young NHL career but the payoffs have been rather sporadic.
Game by game so far, one can see the 23-year-old winger's confidence growing. Along with Noah Cates and the already established Joel Farabee, Tippett is one of the few players in the Flyers' age 25-or-younger segment of the roster in whom head coach John Tortorella has gained a measure of trust.
Apart from his three points over the last four games, two other aspects of Tippett's game have been making an impact on the lineup:
Offensive zone entries:Tippett also showed this ability last year, especially on the power play. Flyers assistant coach Rocky Thompson has taken notice of this skill, and it is notable that more entries have been worked of late with Tippett as the player tabbed to bring the puck in over the attacking blueline. At 5-on-5, Tippett has been part of a trio with Cates and Scott Laughton. Late last season, a line of Tippett with Cates and Morgan Frost showed promise over the season's final 12 games.
Greatly improved defensive play: Even when the Flyers acquired Tippett from Florida last season, he arrived with the reputation of being someone who was average to below-average on the defensive side of the puck. However, with the Flyers, Tippett almost immediately showed that concerns over his off-puck play were overblown. He was not a liability. So far this season, Tippett has bumped up his two-way play another notch to where he's already made three or four really good plays in backchecking situations. Two have helped foil potential shorthanded scoring chances for opponents.
2. Cates' Confidence
The underlying statistics may not show it but Flyers rookie left winger/ center Noah Cates has been rock solid in most of his off-puck play through the season's first 10 games. No one on the Flyers has attractive-looking analytics (at least the publicly available variety) because the team as a whole has habitually been out-possessed, out-shot, and out-chanced by a wide margin. No one player can be a miracle worker in that regard.
Cates' strong attention to detail and day-in-and-day-out consistency are why Tortorella has kept Cates in the top six of the forward rotation through the season's first 10 games. However, the player's offensive zone confidence seems to be a low ebb. Not even a move back to left wing after starting the season at center seems to have helped much thus far.
Cates made an outstanding play -- aggressively forechecking against tired opponents caught out on a very long shift, forcing a turnover, and scoring the game-winning goal on a turnaround shot against superstar goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy -- in the Flyers' comeback win in Tampa Bay on Oct. 18.
Unfortunately, that's the 23-year-old forward's lone offensive highlight of the season to date. Through 10 games, Cates has just one point.
By itself, that's just a blip on the radar screen of a marathon-like season. A couple opportunities that go in the net, or even a little bit of favorable puck luck could balance that out. What's more concerning: Cates only has five shots on goal in the 10 games, and neither his shots-on-goal volume nor his overall shot-attempt numbers have had the expected uptick from the move back to wing.
Right now, it seems that Cates is pressing when he's in the offensive zone. While he was getting to the scoring areas regularly last season and during the preseason this September/early October, he seems to be overthinking and pressing lately from an offensive standpoint.
In Wednesday's match in Toronto, Tortorella made a number of mid-game adjustments to the line combinations. Among the changes: He moved Cates down to Lukas Sedlak's line and put Farabee with Laughton. Tippett, who'd been buzzing all game, moved up to the top line to play with Kevin Hayes and Travis Konecny.
The Flyers will practice in Toronto on Friday before traveling to Ottawa in advance of Saturday's game against Claude Giroux and the Senators.
3. Overreliance on the goalies.
This topic has been discussed at length through the young season, but bears repeating. Tortorella himself has noted that, while he does not expect his team to be one that is likely to look good from analytics standpoint (in which he puts very little stock), it's crystal clear that the Flyers are spending way too much time in their own end of the ice and not nearly enough on the attack.
Apart from a pure offensive talent disparity, the Flyers have hurt themselves the last two games with unforced errors such as failed clearing opportunities when there's time and space to get the puck out or by taking unnecessary icings. There has also been a tendency for some players to overstay their shifts when there's a line-change opportunity. Hayes, for one, did this a couple times in the Rangers game.
The bottom line is this: Carter Hart cannot realistically sustain a save percentage that is currently north of 94 percent. Felix Sandström hasn't played badly in his three starts. He's merely been human, and has an 0-3-0 record, 3.78 GAA and .894 save percentage because of one or two makeable saves plus an unfortunate situation last game where the goalie lost his skate blade and was rendered helpless.
The Flyers have allowed a combined 80 shots on goal over the last two games, while mustering just 43 of their own. That's not going to result in many wins over the long haul. The Flyers actually held pretty even with the Rangers in the first and third periods (the latter being where most of the better Flyers' scoring chances were produced) but were dominated by New York in the long line-change second and overtime periods.
4. Bellows Through Three Games.
Claimed off waivers last week from the New York Islanders, Kieffer Bellows has dressed in three games thus far for the Flyers. He hasn't come close to scoring a goal yet -- Bellows' shot is his No. 1 asset -- but he's had a couple of promising moments in terms of competing physically and demonstrating commitment to improving his off-puck game (one of the main knocks on the player going back to his pre-pro career).
I thought that Bellows, quietly, turned in several productive, engaged shifts in the Toronto game. The player was around the puck more frequently than in his first two games and battled better for space. He was rewarded with some added ice time (18 shifts, 14:26 TOI). Bellows also registered his first two shots on goal as a Flyer. The extended time was earned in that game. Now he has to build from it.
An ongoing challenge for Bellows: Playing at a little quicker pace. He's not blessed with more than average natural speed by NHL standards but this can be compensated for by quickness, anticipation and competitiveness. These are the things Tortorella will be looking for -- with not much patience if the goals aren't coming -- if Bellows is to stay in the lineup for the long haul.
Tortorella is a bottom-line coach, especially with players known primarily for offensive ability. He doesn't care about scoring chances for these players. Torts cares about goals, as he demonstrated by criticizing Frost for not converting any of the five Grade A chances he had in the six-game stretch between the games versus Tampa to the Carolina game. The same is likely to go for Bellows, as well.