John Tortorella spoke to the media after the Flyers’ 4-1 loss Thursday night to the Stars.
VOORHEES, N.J. — As John Tortorella fielded questions about healthy scratching Joel Farabee, the head coach spoke in a nurturing way.
The Flyers are trying to spark Farabee, not punish him. They've worked with the 24-year-old winger and the proof is there. Tortorella has benched his share of players over his tenure in Philadelphia, but he had never sat Farabee for a game up until this point.
When the Flyers host the Ducks on Saturday (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP), Farabee will see his ironman streak of 216 games come to an end. It was the longest active run of consecutive games played on the Flyers' roster.
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"Up until probably a couple of weeks ago, I liked his game," Tortorella said at morning skate. "The production wasn't there, but he was involved. We break tapes down and we have all sorts of information after games, and he's involved in a lot of the offense. Unfortunately he doesn't score, sometimes guys he fed didn't score. But the past couple of weeks, it has just gotten stale."
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As Olle Lycksell draws into the lineup, Farabee has six goals, eight assists and a minus-14 rating this season. His 14 points through 42 games puts him on pace for 27, which would be the second fewest of his career (he had 21 in 52 games as a rookie). Just last season, Farabee had a 22-goal, 50-point career year.
"I think he's in shape, I think he cares, he fights the other night," Tortorella said. "It's hard for me to take him out. He fights for his team, I think he's fighting just to try to get some juice within us. It's not easy taking him out. Sometimes you take out players for punitive stuff, sometimes you take players out just to let them get away from it for a bit. So this isn't punitive. I need to get him playing better.
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"Him and I talked about it yesterday, there's no real answer to [the struggles]. The guy cares. His name's being bounced around during the [trade] deadline and all this; he wants to be here. I am not going to give up on it."
After being challenged in the offseason to take the next step, Farabee "felt great" coming into the season.
"I think this is probably the best camp I've had in my career," he said Oct. 3.
He had a point in each of the Flyers' first three games and Tortorella gave him a good run on the first line from Nov. 25 to Dec. 19. While the Flyers felt Farabee was playing well enough on that line, the desired production never really materialized.
"He was involved in a lot of stuff, so we kept on giving him the time hoping he'd break out of it," Tortorella said. "He faded off, lost some minutes. He alluded to me he wanted to play those minutes to get himself out of it, but somewhere along the line, I have to make a decision as far as trying someone else."
Tortorella said there were some other candidates to sit against Anaheim.
But it ended up being Farabee. Time will tell if it helps him for the second half.
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