The Philadelphia Flyers have ended their hunt for a new coach. Rick Tocchet has landed the job on a reported five-year, $25 million deal.
Tocchet, 61, holds a head coaching record of 286-265-87 over 638 games between the Lightning, Coyotes and Canucks. He has only made the postseason twice in nine seasons, one of which was the pandemic year with the Coyotes where they were dispatched by the Avalanche in five games in the first round (which they wouldn’t likely have made if not for the pandemic bubble expanding the playoffs to 12 teams instead of the typical eight) and the other came in 2023-24 with the Canucks where they were eliminated in the second round by the Oilers.
He won the Jack Adams award in 2023-24 after carrying the Canucks to a 50-win season, quite frankly his only notable achievement as head coach. He did win two Stanley Cups as an assistant with the Penguins in 2016 and 2017.
Tocchet takes control of the team he played 11 seasons with from 1984 to 1992 and again from 2000 to 2002. To this day, he still leads the Flyers in all-time penalty minutes (1,815).
This hire has split the fans. Some are sold on yet another “former Flyer” hire which has plagued this current regime, while others look to Tocchet’s underwhelming past as a reason to be skeptical about his future.
This was a big choice for Danny Briere. The results of this hire are going to fall exclusively on his shoulders. There’s no more blaming a past regime for a coach Briere himself didn’t hire. It’s unfortunate that the front office didn’t take the hire more seriously, considering the consequences failure will bring if Tocchet doesn’t bring the desired step forward the organization is looking for.
He’s respected by the “old boys’ club” which is kind of a red flag in of itself, but having the personality to communicate between front office and players isn’t nothing. But that theory gets put to the test when you consider the very public feud between his players over the last year. J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson had a spat that ultimately resulted in one of them getting traded and the other had an abysmal year and may not be far behind Miller out the door.
It’s hard to look at the hiring Tocchet and anything more than a move to pander to the older fans. “Hey this guy played for the Flyers when they made it to the Final in 1985, he definitely knows what it takes to get them back there!”
We know this to be the trend, because it’s the same marketing strategy they used when Danny Briere and Keith Jones took over, and when they hired the cacophony of other former Flyers currently employed by the organization.
And for what it’s worth, it’s not necessarily the “former Flyer” thing itself that’s a turnoff.
A coach like Rod Brind’Amour, for example, would be fine because he has proven success and some reason to believe he could replicate and advance a winning strategy here.
If an up-and-coming coach like Eric Wellwood was rising through the ranks and the Flyers wanted to take a gamble on him because they believed he could transition to the NHL, fine!
But when it comes to a re-tread like Tocchet who has little proven success at the NHL and brings a coaching system that is painfully close to that of John Tortorella it’s not a good look. He’s hired exclusively because of his former Flyer status. Because if he didn’t have that propping him up and they Flyers hired a random dude with two appearances in nine seasons that reeks of John Tortorella lite, everyone would be rightfully pissed off about it.
The most worrying part of this addition was that Tocchet is a very bland candidate. It was one of the most predictable, vanilla options available to Briere. It’s not a great sign that the GM is finally going to put his big boy pants on and have himself a big 2025 offseason.
Hiring a mid-tier coach and having another disastrous offseason in 2025 leading to another bottom-ten finish in 2025-26… what does the front office think is going to happen then? It’s not going to be well received by an already weary fanbase.
If the team remains stuck in the mud and Tocchet gets canned in a couple years all because he played for the organization in the 80s will be a terrible look for Briere, and could ultimately be his downfall as GM.
It’s a risk they clearly wanted to take, and now all we can do is sit back and wait for the 2025-26 season to see whether or not they’ll look like geniuses or buffoons. My money’s on the latter.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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