Joel Farabee brushes aside trade deadline rumors: ‘I’m 100% committed to being a Flyer’

Hockey players are just like hockey fans — they put their socks on one at a time, and they check the Twitter rumor mill ahead of the impending March 3 trade deadline.

Flyers winger Joel Farabee is no different. He saw Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff report on Thursday that members of his own camp “voiced their displeasure” regarding how the season has gone under first-year coach John Tortorella. Seravalli noted that the frustration “came to a boil” when Farabee was limited to 3 minutes, 52 seconds of ice time against the Calgary Flames on Monday. However, Seravalli also wrote that the Flyers aren’t interested in trading Farabee at his “lowest value,” and that Farabee’s camp hasn’t submitted a formal trade request.

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At Friday’s morning skate, Farabee stressed that he isn’t interested in leaving Philadelphia.

“This time of the year, I think with the trade deadline and all that stuff, I think a lot of people love to just say whatever they want on Twitter and stuff gets taken the wrong way,” Farabee said. “I think for me right now, I’m 100% committed to being a Flyer. I love being here. I love playing for this city. And that’s all I’m really focused on.”

Farabee, who turns 23 on Saturday, noted that his play hasn’t been up to his own standards this season. He had artificial disk replacement surgery on June 24, missing training camp and preseason, but returned for the season opener on Oct. 13. However, Farabee did not have the standard offseason to get stronger because he was rehabbing from his surgery instead. His performance has been inconsistent (nine goals, 17 assists in 59 games) and he has been playing primarily in the team’s bottom six throughout February.

Tortorella has acknowledged that Farabee’s lack of an offseason has hindered his performance. However, Tortorella also said on Dec. 15 ahead of their game against the New Jersey Devils, “I’m not going to let him hide behind his injury. I think it’s plenty of time to get through that.”

Regardless of his recent in-game benching against the Flames and his demotion to the fourth line going into that game, Farabee has gotten an average of 16:41 of ice time per game this season. That nightly playing time is a 30-second increase on his career average. He has contributed on the power play and the penalty kill.

“I’ve been put in a lot of good spots, no complaints there,” Farabee said. “I think you see all that stuff on Twitter. I was reading some of it. People think that I’m complaining about ice time and all that stuff. It’s not true at all. Honestly, I don’t think my opportunity has been limited at all. I think I just need to play better. That’s the bottom line.”

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Farabee is in the first year of a six-year, $30 million deal that he signed ahead of the 2021-22 season. While he emphasized that he wants to continue to be a Flyer, he did not go into much detail about his relationship with Tortorella, whom the report specifically named. Farabee said his relationship with Tortorella is much like his teammates’ relationships with the coach. He hasn’t had many one-on-one conversations with him, with Tortorella interacting with the team in group settings and in video sessions instead.

When asked about the report, Tortorella said that if Farabee’s agent is the one leaking information, he should “just shut up” and that he doesn’t “give a damn” about what he says. Farabee is represented by Shawn Hunwick of KO Sports. Tortorella reiterated that Farabee did not have time this offseason to gain strength in the gym, making it challenging to get a read on him as a player.

“I have not given up on Joel Farabee,” Tortorella said. “I think it’s really hard to make an evaluation on him this year.”

Winger Travis Konecny (upper body) did not participate in morning skate on Friday and was a scratch for the game against Montreal. Tortorella did not have an update on his timeline for return. ... Winger Zack MacEwen (broken jaw) and center Tanner Laczynski (lower body) participated in morning skate for the first time since sustaining their respective injuries. Tortorella also did not have an update on their timelines.