Mike Sielski: The Flyers might reach into their past to hire Rick Tocchet. Fear not.

Mike Sielski, The Philadelphia Inquirer on May 1, 2025

Published in Hockey

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PHILADELPHIA — The Flyers don’t have a head coach and may not have one for a while, and their search could be building to a conclusion that will feel familiar.

Rick Tocchet had roughly two months left on his contract with the Vancouver Canucks before Tuesday, when he and the team parted ways, as the phrasing goes in these situations. The Canucks didn’t pick up his option, and because they don’t have their own practice facility, because they’re behind most NHL clubs in the basics of modern franchise infrastructure, Tocchet was at first reluctant, and in the end unwilling, to sign a new deal with them.

So he’s out there and available now, and the prospect of the Flyers’ hiring one of their former players, one of their all-time greats, is bound to send a significant segment of their fan base into the symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

Team president Keith Jones and general manager Danny Brière already had deep connections to the Flyers when they stepped into their jobs, and hiring a head coach with a similar background would appear reminiscent of the same problem that plagued the organization for generations: a culture that was too insular, too tied to the past, too much of an orange-and-black old boys network.

On the surface, Tocchet, 61, would seem the worst kind of coaching hire for the Flyers: a retread who in nine seasons, over stints with Tampa Bay and Arizona and Vancouver, has won just two postseason series. A fallback for a franchise still reluctant to try anything new.

That would be a natural and understandable perspective to have on this hire. This time, though, that perspective would miss the point.

Look, the Flyers like Tocchet. They consider him a topflight coach, and they’ll tell you that his history with the organization won’t make any difference one way or another in whether they choose to hire him. They might hire him. They might not. He might be the right coach for them. He might not be. But as important as that decision will be, it won’t define the franchise’s future. The decision that will already has been made. The decision that the Flyers waited so long to make. The decision to rebuild.

Brière and Jones and chairman Dan Hilferty already took the big step of telling everyone, We’re not going to tread water anymore, then followed through on it. That strategy is such a clean and decisive break from the Flyers’ tradition — their annual attempts to compete for the Stanley Cup or at least for a playoff berth, because who knows what might happen in the playoffs? — that it’s silly to see any subsequent move through that old and cloudy prism.

Now, just because the Flyers are rebuilding, finally, doesn’t mean that Brière and Jones are guaranteed to turn them into a championship club or even a Cup contender. But the success or failure of the rebuild won’t come down to this coaching hire. It just won’t.

Assume the Flyers hire Tocchet. Hell, assume they hire Mike Sullivan. Or Pat Ferschweiler. If that coach proves that he wasn’t the right choice, Brière and Jones can find a replacement relatively quickly. In the NHL, teams change head coaches like pit crews change radials.

No, the decisions with the most significant, longest-lasting ramifications for the Flyers won’t be about who will be behind the bench, but who will be on the ice, and Brière and Jones are still making those calls. They signed Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett and Travis Sanheim to lengthy contracts. They drafted Matvei Michkov. They have some promising prospects in their organization. They have seven picks in the first two rounds of this year’s draft. They eventually will have the assets and opportunity to pull off a major trade if they wish.

“The last few years, even before I was GM, when I was in the organization, we kept hearing, ‘The Flyers don’t have enough skill, enough talent,’” Brière said. “That was always the thing that was holding us back. That was the message out there. I started to look. Konecny has elevated his game. Matvei Michkov coming over has really expanded that level of skill. Tyson Foerster brings another level. Owen Tippett. We’re starting to see more and more talent. … I think we’re shifting away from what we were a few years ago, with the lack of skill.”

Get those moves right, and no one will care where the next head coach played or worked before arriving in, or returning to, Philadelphia. Could be a name everyone around here recognizes. Could be a complete unknown. Could be Rick Tocchet. Could be someone else. Yes, the head coach matters. The roster will matter more.