The Flyers lost 4-1 to the Canes on Wednesday night. Just beaten by a better team with more talent. That's the story of the game. The bigger takeaway from the last 24 hours, IMO, is this insightful interview John Tortorella did with the TNT crew, explaining in detail how he's coaching Matvei Michkov this season. This is only four and a half minutes long and a snippet worth watching:

Q: (communication and adjustment to the American game)

Torts: "It's been a little difficult for me because the way I like to coach is, if something happens, I'm hitting that right away. On the bench, in practice, whatever it may be. I'm not going back and waiting and going through the handbook and trying to figure out how to handle that situation or whatever arises. I think it's pretty important, spontaneous coaching. I can't do that with Mich because he just doesn't understand. I tried it on the bench one night, there was a situation I was trying to explain, and he's 'yeah yeahing' me, but he really doesn't know what I'm saying. So what we've done here is we started using Egor Zamula (to translate), but Zamula's game started going downhill so we just left him alone as the interpreter. We just wanted him to play. What we're doing now is once a week, we have an interpreter, we sit down in my office and go over things. I wanna listen to him, he has to listen to me. It's easier that way. But it's difficult because I'm not a one-on-one meeting guy. If it happens, it happens, we do it right there. I think that's a healthy way of coaching, but with him it has to be a little bit different because he's 19, there's so much going on around him, and he really doesn't understand. He speaks better as we've gone on here. But I don't think he totally understands some of the things we're going through, so we're trying to be careful about it and we're gonna slow it down and do it once a week with him."

Q: You've coached elite players, do you see any similarities in his game to past players?

Torts: "Off the top of my head I look at him and I can't think of really a player that's similar to him, but with him, there are situations where I'm watching him and he makes these little three, four-foot passes that I don't think a lot of people can make. His skating, he's not the fastest skater, or the quickest skater, but he has this innate ability to be able to make plays in tight (spaces). I remember coaching (Artemi) Panarin in Columbus. He can make plays all over the place. (Panarin) is a little bit different because he lets plays go by him, and then slows the game down. Mich is making plays in the action where you're going, 'Mich, Mich - oh, great play.' It's one of those. We are really, the whole coaching staff, really pushing him not to worry about mistakes or turnovers. We'll go through the coaching of that through more games. We need to see his offense. We're not a great offensive team, and we want him to explore himself and not be afraid to make a mistake. Now if he goes off the rail and it's too much, that's when we have to coach him a little bit. Very similar to Travis Konecny, TK is all over the place and you never know what he's going to do, but he makes great offensive plays. We want to allow him to do that, then we'll decide when we need to bring him back. Mich is, we've gone through a number of things as the season's started here, and some disagreements along the way, but that's healthy. Everyone gets all amped up about it, but it's healthy. He's being honest with me, I'm being honest with him, and you get to the point where you're solving problems quicker that way. That's what I like about him. He's got some jam to him. He has opinions and I'd rather have a player that way instead of trying to suck it out of him. It's going to be fun to coach him and he really does some special things. Really looking forward to it as we progress here."

Just two answers but a lot to unpack. It feels... maybe concerning that they only meet with the translator once per week? How do you coach a guy if you can only communicate fully every so often? That's one side of the coin, but the other side is that at least you're not overcoaching the guy. You're not in his ear every five seconds, on the bench, at practice, whatever, overloading a teenager with information. He's able to go out and play and learn the NHL game, which jives with what Torts is saying in that second answer. Michkov needs to be allowed to create offensively, make mistakes, and "explore himself," to use Tortorella's phrasing. That goes hand-in-hand with the thought that a lot of fans seemed to express with the Michigan attempts. Is that the highest-percentage play in the moment? Scott Hartnell would say no. But you let a talented player try things, and if it gets to be too much, you reel them in and have a talk. That's exactly what Torts is saying in that second answer.