Rick Tocchet, Flyers are a natural fit, but not for the reasons you might assume

New York Times

15-05-2025

It's an established pattern in the NHL — teams rotating through the same inventory of coaches over and over, in the hopes that the experience they have gained in their previous stops will help them to immediately get off on the right foot in their new locales.
Rick Tocchet, 61, is now firmly one of them. The Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday became the fourth organization to employ him as a head coach, after he previously paced behind the benches of the Tampa Bay Lightning for nearly two full seasons, the Arizona Coyotes for four seasons and the Vancouver Canucks for two and a half seasons.
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The standard complaints about a team recycling a coach are predictable, and may even have some merit. Tocchet has never made it out of the second round of the playoffs, and some questions need to be asked about how the Canucks went from one of the league's best teams in 2023-24 under Tocchet to missing the playoffs this season.
Still, it always felt like Tocchet and the Flyers were a natural fit.
That's not because he once played for the team, something that is still an immediate turn-off for a portion of the fan base. The fact is, even if Tocchet had never been drafted by or skated for the Flyers, he would have been a strong contender for the job. Such is the respect he has around the league, both as a coach and a man, including from Flyers president of hockey operations Keith Jones. There's a reason he reportedly also was pursued by teams such as the Boston Bruins and Seattle Kraken for their coaching vacancies.
No, this is a fit for another reason entirely: It brings more stability to both the Flyers franchise, and to Tocchet himself.
From a franchise perspective, the Flyers' attempt at reestablishing themselves as one of the league's premier teams is still an ongoing process. The past two seasons under general manager Daniel Briere have been about setting a certain standard and culture, while also attempting to build for the future by dealing away popular and still effective players. They're two years into what was always going to be a three-year process.
But Briere also has said that being in the mix for a playoff spot in 2025-26 should be the aim. That will be no easy task after the Flyers finished with the fourth-worst record in the NHL this season, although Briere has also said he doesn't believe the team was as poor as that record would indicate. Perhaps there's some merit there — if the Flyers hadn't routinely played two backup goalies that weren't anything close to NHL-caliber, had kept their roster intact rather than trading key pieces away, and had a coaching staff that knew what it was doing on the power play — something Tocchet excels at — they probably would have had at least 10 or 12 more points in the standings.
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Still, while it's likely that the Flyers will make at least one or two notable moves this offseason, the 2026 offseason is shaping up as the more important one. By this time next year, the Flyers will be free of most of the dead money they're carrying on the salary cap, and will look to start adding big-name, big-money players in free agency, or in trades for players who might have trade protection.
If they're going to accomplish that, it's going to take more than just having salary-cap space and being prepared to write a massive check or two. They're going to have to be viewed as a franchise that's again on the upswing, and, therefore, as a desirable place to play.
In other words, stable. And Tocchet, as the most experienced coach still available, gives the Flyers the best chance to achieve that stability. Not only will he be instantly respected in the Flyers' dressing room, but some of the game's biggest stars that have been coached by him, have high praise for him. Sidney Crosby, who had Tocchet as an assistant coach in Pittsburgh during two Stanley Cup-winning seasons, is one, as is Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes. No doubt other star-level players know that, too — perhaps even a few who might be looking for new homes in less than 14 months.
Jones said in a statement: 'We are thrilled to have Rick lead our team into the future. What is impressive about Rick is that players gravitate towards him and develop a strong relationship in the process. There is a genuine trust that he will do everything he can to bring success to the team.'
On some levels, Tocchet and former coach John Tortorella have a few similarities. They are both viewed as more 'old school' in their approaches, whether that's a defense-first mentality, which brings with it the risk of stifling offensive players, or, perhaps, being a bit too demanding and rigid in their instructions. But that isn't something that would be a turnoff for the Flyers' brass. Yes, it was an ugly ending to the Tortorella marriage in March. But prior to those final few weeks, it was evident in the moves that Briere made that he respected Tortorella's decisions with the roster, including the way that the coach handled rookie Matvei Michkov.
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In terms of evaluating Tocchet, some young players, such as Clayton Keller in Arizona and Elias Pettersson in Vancouver, are two high-end talents who perhaps didn't respond to the coach's methods. But what Tocchet will inevitably do better than Tortorella is communicate with his players when issues arise. There aren't likely to be any situations like there were with Sean Couturier and Cam York telling reporters they had no idea why they were getting healthy-scratched by Tortorella, for example.
Tocchet, it's been reported, wasn't necessarily looking to jump back into coaching right away after parting ways with the Canucks last month. When he popped up on the TNT panel again last week, there was speculation he'd be back there on a full-time basis again soon, trading playful barbs with Liam McHugh and Paul Bissonnette.
But the Flyers' job offers him the sort of stability he hasn't had in the past. His first job as a head coach, in Tampa Bay, came before that team was purchased by Jeff Vinik. He replaced Barry Melrose after just 16 games, and was let go after the ownership change resulted in an entirely new regime.
The Coyotes, of course, were never a stable franchise, and finally relocated to Utah about a year ago. When Tocchet was in charge, they were still routinely trading for dead money just to reach the salary-cap floor.
It's tough to offer a fair evaluation of a head coach in those circumstances.
Vancouver probably seemed like a good situation at first, with a talented roster in a rabid, Canadian hockey market. But after one successful season, 2024-25 devolved into a dysfunctional mess, including a rift between Pettersson and J.T. Miller that resulted in the trade of the latter to the New York Rangers. How much blame Tocchet bears for what went down there this season is difficult to ascertain, but the Canucks were hoping to keep him around before there was an amicable split.
Surely, Briere, Jones and team governor Dan Hilferty all convinced Tocchet that the Flyers of now aren't the same as the Flyers of five years ago, when Chuck Fletcher, Dave Scott and Valerie Camillo were running things into the ground, and when Tocchet interviewed for the job that eventually went to Tortorella. There is a now clear direction and a plan in place, along with Comcast's deep pockets.
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Whether the franchise is being steered in the correct way is something that Tocchet will now help to determine. But at the very least, his hiring, and the level of comfort it likely brings everyone involved, allows the organization to continue down the path it has already set without veering off in an entirely different direction.