May 2, 2026; Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Philadelphia Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet walk off the ice after their loss to the Carolina Hurricanes at Lenovo Center. Mandatory Credit: James Guillory-Imagn Images
RALEIGH, N.C. -- After the Game 1 loss to Carolina, Flyers coach Rick Tocchet declared that rookie Denver Barkey was his team's best player in the game.
And that's fine. Barkey was certainly noticeable. He was one of a few Flyers trying to match Carolina's speed, and he's also unafraid to go to war along the walls, even though 99 percent of the players he's battling are bigger and stronger than he is.
But this story isn't some David vs. Goliath, feel-good tale. No, it's quite the opposite.
Tocchet calling Barkey his best player in the game - something he reiterated again on Sunday as the team held an optional practice in advance of Monday's Game 2 - is an indictment on the other Flyers forwards.
And while he wouldn't name names, Tocchet said he needs more from certain players if the Flyers are to pull off an upset of the Hurricanes.
"Just watching the video, it didn't look like a lot of guys wanted the puck," Tocchet said. "Against Carolina you have to want to want the puck. You're going to want confrontation. You're going to want to make that play. ...
"... We got to hit singles every shift. We can't try to hit home runs. I just felt a lot of guys were all-in on a home run or not skating."
You don't have to look far in the Flyers lineup to identify the culprits.
The top five scorers from the regular season - Travis Konency, Trevor Zegras, Matvei Michkov, Christian Dvorak and Owen Tippett have combined to score just three goals in the Flyers seven playoff games.
Michkov was a healthy scratch in one game and Tippett had been playing through an undisclosed injury before missing Game 1 and is day-to-day.
Still, teams who only have three goals from their five top players in seven games are few and far between in the playoffs.
And yet, here are the Flyers and they are at a bit of a crossroads against a talented hockey club in Carolina.
"I'm a big believer in meeting pressure with pressure," Tocchet said. "So, wherever it is, go find it. We were going away from it. ... There are plays, and it's plain as day to me, if we went to the area we should have gone to, we would have had either puck possession or some kind of rush play. We somehow were playing the outside and that effect helps out Carolina.
"Is it a mindset? Experience? Is it the quick turnaround? I don't know. It could be a bunch of those things, but we don't have time. You can't play three or four games like that. You have to go figure it out quickly."
Tocchet expanded further to identify examples of players not wanting the puck, although he didn't identify players specifically, but it wasn't hard to figure out who he was talking about.
"It's moving your feet. It's when you have the puck, skate with it," he said. "On the goals we had two guys who had the puck. If you skate with it and make a play instead of a quick play and it hits a skate (and turns over), those are the plays you have to skate."
On Carolina's first goal, Rasmus Ristolainen makes a small pass to Michkov who instead of catching the puck and skating with it, makes a quick backhanded pass to nobody. Carolina's Jackson Blake retrieved it, fed the point where Mike Reilly fired a slapshot that Logan Stankoven tipped past Dan Vladar.
Logan Stankoven opens up the scoring tonight for the Hurricanes against the Flyers!
It was the third fastest goal to start a playoff game in Hurricanes/Whalers history#SoundTheSiren #LetsGoFlyers #NHL #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/L8PhgPihjT
However, had Michkov caught the pass and skated with the puck, there isn't a turnover on the play.
On Carolina's third goal, which was the dagger, Noah Juulsen should have skated the puck out of his zone. Instead, he tried to make a pass with his forwards flying the zone. The pass hit Andrei Svechnikov's skate, went right to Seth Jarvis who fed Stankoven for his second goal of the game.
"Find the hard ice," Tocchet said. "The easy ice is taking it back or playing the outside. But if you want the hard ice, it's inside. You might get hit. Somebody might hook you. Somebody might hold you. Somebody might drag you down. I'm a big believer in hard ice. Especially in the playoffs, and in the first half (of the game) we were more on the easy ice side."
Tocchet shuffled his lines in the third period. He moved Zegras back to the wing and replaced him at center with Barkey.
Once a center in junior hockey, Barkey was moved to the wing because of his smaller stature. Usually, hockey teams prefer big, strong centers, but Barkey was skating hard and hunting pucks, and that's what Tocchet wants out of the guys in the middle.
Zegras was one of the guys not giving him that.
Hear from Trevor Zegras, Garnet Hathaway and Cam York following Sunday's practice in Raleigh. #IgniteTheOrange
"I think we have to play through guys a little bit more and go places where you might get hit," Zegras said. "The easy ice is a little more time and space, so we have to play a bit more under pressure. You're always looking for an extra five feet out there but I don't know if this is a team or a series where that's something we should be looking for because that's kind of what they want. So, play a little more fast, and direct and get your feet moving."
The reason looking for space doesn't work against Carolina is, it's a trap. When you do that, you allow them to stay committed to their defensive posture. When you skate with the puck in a straight line, if forces them to defend you man-on-man, and if you win one battle, it forces another guy to abandon his spot in that system and then there could be breakdowns to be exploited.
But if you circle backwards, they stay in position. If you try a low percentage play, and it fails, then the Hurricanes will come right back at you with speed and in possession of the puck.
It's a lose/lose scenario, and one the Flyers need to avoid.
"The more that we can get them stopped in the offensive zone, because they like to fly around and they don't love stopping, the more we can get them to stop, we can start playing our game in the offensive zone," Konencny said. "We can get more shots and I think we'd have a better chance. It's hard when you are trying to find that over and over and we just didn't get to it quite as fast as we wanted to."
Sunday's practice was optional, and several guys didn't skate. Owen Tippett did, but when the assistant coaches were running competitive board battle drills, Tippett worked on skating and shooting down the other end of the arena with third string goalie Aleksei Kolosov.
Tocchet didn't provide an update other than to say Tippett remained day-to-day.
"When I play with him, I feel like just by how he uses his feet, I usually get my feet going a little bit more," Zegras said of Tippett. "Without him, I just got to get going a little earlier."
If he can't go, there still might be other lineup changes. Emil Andrae could replace Juulsen on the third defensive pair, and it's worth wondering if Tocchet might turn to Carl Grundstrom for a fourth line role since he's a good skater.
Barkey may get a longer look at center with Zegras on the wing. But all of this line juggling and roster movement is cosmetic if the top players don't start scoring goals.
And to do that, they have to force themselves to play an uncomfortable style of hockey. They aren't beating Carolina unless they do.
