Why Rick Tocchet could make sense as the Flyers’ next coach

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The fit seems natural. Rick Tocchet, whose tenure as the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks could come to an end in a few weeks, returning to fill the coaching vacancy in the city in which he began his NHL career and where he essentially was the embodiment of what it meant to be a Philadelphia Flyer in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

That is, a player who could score, yes, but also would also do anything for his teammates, including dropping his gloves on a not-infrequent basis. Tocchet is still 10th overall in penalty minutes in league history (2,970) and had 440 career goals — the former number just as important as the latter to a certain, albeit perhaps diminishing, generation of Flyers fans.

The odds-makers believe it’s a possibility. According to FanDuel (per TSN), Tocchet is the favorite to become the next Flyers’ coach at +185, ahead of the University of Denver’s David Carle (+210), former Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft (+340) and current interim coach Brad Shaw (+430).

And it does make some sense.

Beyond Tocchet’s close friendship with Flyers president of hockey operations Keith Jones, the 60-year-old has a solid reputation as a head coach. He helped some terribly undermanned Coyotes teams at least stay competitive — seriously, look at some of the rosters he had to work with — and in his first full season with the Canucks in 2023-24, he won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s top coach as Vancouver won 50 games, captured the Pacific Division and pushed the Edmonton Oilers to seven games in the second round of the playoffs.

This season hasn’t gone as well for Vancouver, currently outside of the top eight in the Western Conference. But they’ve also been beset by internal strife, something that Tocchet may have been powerless to prevent. Colleague Thomas Drance recently wrote of Tocchet:

“While he’s drawn the ire of some segments of the Canucks fan base this season, which is understandable given the disappointing results and popgun offensive production this year, there’s no questioning the structural integrity that Tocchet’s Canucks have played with. The Canucks have been consistently well organized and tactically thoughtful. Tocchet authored one of the great single-season defensive turnarounds in recent NHL history during the 2023-24 campaign.”

There would seem to be some similarities between Tocchet and former coach John Tortorella. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Up until the post-trade deadline deterioration of the relationship between Tortorella and the organization, general manager Daniel Briere showed with his actions that the Flyers desire the kind of players that are mentally strong enough to persevere through hard coaching, which Tocchet has been known to employ in a slightly less-Tortsian way. Just because Tortorella isn’t here anymore, that probably hasn’t changed, as evidenced by Briere’s effusive praise of the way Tortorella handled rookie Matvei Michkov.

There’s more. The two issues that have plagued the Flyers for some time now are the goaltending and the power play.

Tocchet wouldn’t be able to stop any pucks. It will be Briere’s responsibility to fix that position in the offseason. But he can oversee a power play. He was in charge of it in Pittsburgh, where he served as an assistant coach for three seasons from 2014-15 through 2016-17 — a tenure that included a pair of Stanley Cup championships. The Penguins had a 20.3 percent success rate over those three seasons, fifth in the NHL.

Since taking over in Vancouver on Jan. 22, 2023, the Canucks have the 12th-ranked power play over that span (22.3 percent). Even the Coyotes topped out at 20.8 percent, 13th in the NHL, in the COVID-shortened season of 2020-21.

In fact, none other than Sidney Crosby has an especially strong fondness for Tocchet, including his power-play coaching.

Colleague John Yohe wrote in 2023: “You know who swears by Tocchet? Sidney Crosby, that’s who. It’s important to understand that while Crosby is no coach-killer, he’s very much a coach evaluator. He has his favorites. While I suspect there are some coaches who Crosby didn’t care for, he never bad-mouths them. He just doesn’t mention them anymore. They’re a part of his past. When you mention Tocchet’s name around Crosby, the Penguins captain lights up like a Christmas tree.”

No, the Flyers don’t have a Quinn Hughes or Kris Letang, an in-his-prime type of player who can serve as quarterback. Nor do they have a past or present Crosby. But there’s still enough talent on the roster, including a budding star in Michkov, an improving Jamie Drysdale, and shooters such as Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett and Tyson Foerster, that it should be better than it is now — 30th in the NHL after finishing dead last in each of the last two seasons under Tortorella and Rocky Thompson.

Tocchet could potentially bring assistant coach Sergei Gonchar with him from Vancouver, as the former defenseman also has experience coaching (and, from his playing days, quarterbacking) the man advantage. Tocchet overseeing Gonchar and Shaw, who has deftly guided the Flyers’ defense core and penalty kill, is one scenario that could play out here.

From an optics standpoint, a Tocchet hire would result in the standard eye-rolling from a certain portion of the fan base that would consider it as just the latest example of the Flyers only considering former members of the organization for key roles. But that’s unfair. Tocchet has coaching experience in six different NHL organizations, none of them the Flyers. He hasn’t gotten a paycheck from Comcast-Spectacor in more than two decades. Further, would those curmudgeons have the same reaction if, say, Rod Brind’amour was available?

But fans skeptical of a Tocchet hiring would probably be won over fairly quickly anyway, perhaps as soon as his introductory press conference. Part of Tocchet’s effectiveness as a coach is that he’s a seasoned communicator — as evidenced not just by his news conferences with the local media, but as part of the initial panel on TNT broadcasts before he departed for Vancouver.

The Flyers want to start getting better next season. Briere has made that clear over and over again, mentioning after the trade deadline (and before the Tortorella firing) that they’d like to be in the playoff chase a year from now. Moves to acquire more talent that can help right away seems inevitable this summer. It could push Briere toward an NHL-experienced coach over someone like, for example, Carle.

So prepare to hear Tocchet’s name linked to the Flyers frequently, perhaps even sooner than later with the Canucks falling further out of the playoff race.

(Photo: Carey Lauder / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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