John Tortorella’s decision to bench Morgan Frost is just part of the Flyers’ ‘Process’

To review the breathless reaction over the last few days to the absence of Morgan Frost from the Flyers’ lineup, you’d have thought John Tortorella had decided to bench Wayne Gretzky. Or Mario Lemieux. Or any number of players who are more accomplished than Frost and who are on teams whose primary aim this season is to win the Stanley Cup.

The Flyers are not one of those teams. Tortorella has scratched Frost seven times, including for a 2-1 loss Tuesday night to the lowly San Jose Sharks, and that pattern should serve as a reminder of some truths that the club’s not-awful start has apparently caused lots of people to forget. The Flyers are a long, long way from being good, and Frost is a long, long way from being good enough to earn the benefit of the doubt from Tortorella. The coach’s job here is to challenge a player like Frost, to squeeze him like a piece of coal and see if he crumbles or develops into a diamond, and the notion that putting Frost’s rump on the bench for a few games is some kind of setback in the years-long rebuild that the Flyers have just begun is silly.

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If you want to look at this situation from a short-term perspective, be my guest. There’s certainly an argument to be made that, if Tortorella wants to make an example of someone, he could choose someone other than Frost. Owen Tippett, Noah Cates, Tyson Foerster: You can find a reason for any of them to sit.

Frost is a fine candidate, though. When he has been in the lineup, the Flyers are 2-4-0 and have been outscored 21-15. When he has been scratched, they are 3-3-1 and have outscored their opponents 23-20. He doesn’t have a point in the six games he has played, and offense is supposed to be his thing. It has become popular to point out that, over his final 55 games last season, Frost led the Flyers with 40 points, as if that production then should inoculate him against Tortorella’s tough love now. Except that 40-in-55 is a 60-point pace over 82 games. A 60-point pace is nothing otherworldly, and it’s not enough to grant Frost special dispensation from meeting the standards that Tortorella sets.

And Frost has not been meeting those standards, according to a source within the organization. He has been lacking “a level of compete” and “not digging in when he has to,” the source said. “He has not played very well. So he’s made it easy for the coach to take him out.”

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Just because Frost is out, of course, doesn’t mean he can’t go back in. That dispiriting loss in San Jose — the Sharks had been winless in their first 11 games — gives Tortorella all the reason he would need to reinsert Frost into the lineup Friday night against the Anaheim Ducks. He will, and he should. The Flyers don’t want to trade Frost. He’s still just 24, not a finished product, and for all the time he’s already spent in Tortorella’s doghouse, the Flyers want it to work out here for him.

“We believe that he’s part of our immediate future,” the source said.

Granted, they pretty much have to believe that; they don’t have much choice. Even before the start of the regular season, there has been minimal interest around the NHL, if any, in trading for Frost, which shouldn’t be surprising. The Flyers have two assets on their roster who would command a substantive package of players and draft picks in a trade — Carter Hart and Travis Konecny — and for the moment Frost falls into the same category that most of his teammates do: unknowns, maybes, and we’ll-sees.

Such are the uncertainties and open questions endemic to the sort of project that the Flyers have taken on. To be blunt, it does not matter what their record is this season. To be softer and more accurate, their record matters only in that it will influence their chances of securing a high pick in the 2024 NHL draft, which will influence their chances of acquiring the kind of highly skilled player of which they have too few in their organization right now. That’s it. Complaining about Tortorella’s decision to scratch Frost is like taking a time machine back to 2014 to argue that Brett Brown shouldn’t bench Tony Wroten. There’s a sweet spot of process and outcomes that the Flyers should be, and apparently are, attempting to find: They will try to win every night. But the manner in which they play — the players’ habits, their tenacity, their mental staying power — will be more important than the team’s place in the standings.

If Morgan Frost passes that test, good for him and them. If he doesn’t, the Flyers will have plenty of time to find someone else who can.

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