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Lindblom’s Release From Flyers in a Different Light

By Walt Gebelein

Nov 25, 2019; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Flyers left wing Oskar Lindblom (23) during the first period against the Vancouver Canucks at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 25, 2019; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Flyers left wing Oskar Lindblom (23) during the first period against the Vancouver Canucks at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports /
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VANCOUVER, BC – NOVEMBER 23: John Tortorella Head Coach of the Vancouver Canucks reacts after answering a quesiton during the post game press conference after NHL action between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Vancouver Canucks on November 23, 2013 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images)
VANCOUVER, BC – NOVEMBER 23: John Tortorella Head Coach of the Vancouver Canucks reacts after answering a quesiton during the post game press conference after NHL action between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Vancouver Canucks on November 23, 2013 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images) /

Whatever personal feelings linger about Torts, his teams work hard, they play a tough, aggressive and energetic game. He will not tolerate lack of effort, he will insist that players find and give that extra one percent. When the coach gets it, he will demand the next extra one percent and he will continue to do so until there is nothing left.

This is what makes him a great coach, but is an extremely demanding process for the players. This is the opposite of the work smarter (if at all) ethos that now permeates the team. It has been speculated that Tortorella is not just here to turn things around, but as a rekoning, or even as a punishment.

The Flyers have brought in the toughest drill sargent in the land to run the toughest boot cap ever seen in an effort to motivate and energize the team. It will be a grueling journey that will separate those who can cut it from those who can’t. A process to seperate the weak from the strong. Ryan Ellis may not survive, and it could end his career, if it is not over already. Kevin Hayes will learn to love to block shots, or love to ride the pine.

Youngsters like Frost and York will get heaping platefuls of tough love, and then get seconds and thirds. It will be sink or swim, careers will be crushed or catapulted.  And then there was Oskar Lindblom, a cancer survivor.

Knowing what he has set in motion, knowing that this will be grueling, knowing that this will be a reckoning and knowing that Lindblom’s cancer is in remission, is it possible that Chuck Fletcher did the math and decided he was not going to subject Lindblom to hell on ice? Did the GM see the stakes were just too high?  Did Fletcher recognize that staying with the team may have turned into a matter of life or death for Oskar Lindblom?

Watching Lindblom play, he is not one of the Flyers I would consider “lazy”. Knowing what I do about LIndblom, I can’t imagine him accepting being asked, or required, to do less than his teammates in a tough practice because of his medical history. Even if his teammates supported the practice, maybe because his teammates supported him.

Tortorella, for his part, seems to have mellowed and may have accepted special treatment for Lindblom, perhaps assigning him manditory maitenance days on particularly hard days, but at the same time much of Torts’ genius is reactionary. Would he sit Lindblom out of a “lesson teaching” practice after a poor team effort the previous night? Would having a wounded solider, especially a person as wonderful as Lindblom, undermine the full Tortorella effect.  Would it make Coach John soft?

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