Flyers coaching candidate Rick Tocchet is a free agent after parting ways with the Canucks
The 61-year-old Tocchet, who won the Jack Adams Award last year, played parts of 11 seasons for the Flyers and is friends with Keith Jones. He is expected to be a top contender for the Flyers' job.
When the news came down on March 27 that the Flyers were moving on from John Tortorella, all eyes immediately swung north of the border to Vancouver.
The Flyers’ appreciation for Canucks coach Rick Tocchet is nothing new nor some huge surprise. Tocchet, a Flyers Hall of Famer as a player, was beloved over 11 seasons in two spells in Philadelphia for his toughness and goal-scoring exploits as a power forward.
» READ MORE: 13 coaching candidates the Flyers could target to replace John Tortorella
The catch?
Until Tuesday, Tocchet was employed by the Canucks and had a club option for next season with the team. That hurdle is now cleared, as the team announced that Tocchet has elected not to return to Vancouver after 2½ seasons in charge.
“After a very long and thorough process, unfortunately Rick has decided to leave the Vancouver Canucks,” said president Jim Rutherford in the release.
“This is very disappointing news, but we respect Rick’s decision to move to a new chapter in his hockey career. We did everything in our power to keep him, but at the end of the day Rick felt he needed a change. He is a good friend, a good coach, and we can’t thank him enough for all he did for our organization. Toc is a stand-up guy, and we wish him nothing but the best moving forward.”
In the release, Tocchet thanked the Canucks organization and cited “family” as a big part of his decision. “While I don’t know where I’m headed, or exactly how this will play out for me over the near term, I feel like this is the right time for me to explore other opportunities in and around hockey,” he said.
The Canucks were hoping to extend Tocchet’s contract and also could have triggered the club option they held with him for next season, although Rutherford previously said the team would not exercise that option if Tocchet did not want to stay.
Since they did neither, Tocchet, who won the Jack Adams Award last season as the NHL’s top coach, is now free to pursue any coaching opportunity he desires, and that could include a return to Broad Street.
The 61-year-old is a close friend of Flyers president Keith Jones, and a former teammate of Danny Brière’s, so the connections are natural. Tocchet, who also has done TV work for Comcast’s NBC Sports Philadelphia, was linked with the Flyers’ vacancy in 2022 before the previous regime led by GM Chuck Fletcher hired Tortorella. Sources have told The Inquirer that Tocchet is high on the team’s current wish list.
“A big part of my blood is the Flyers. The city, I have a lot of huge memories there. I’ve lived most of my adult life there,” Tocchet told The Inquirer in 2023.
“The way the Flyers treated me really helped me. I thought obviously, the brand, the Snider brand was incredible to me. So I have, obviously, a soft spot for the organization, just the way they do things. And, it actually gives me pride the way that Keith Jones has gone in there and he’s bringing back that family atmosphere again. It’s fun to see what they’re doing right now.”
The Ontario native has amassed a 286-265-87 record across three teams as a head coach (.516 points percentage). His teams have qualified for the playoffs just twice in nine years as a head coach, although he inherited losing teams in the middle of the season on two occasions and took on a significant rebuild in Arizona. With Vancouver, Tocchet was 108-65-27 (.608 points percentage), and led the Canucks to within one game of reaching the Western Conference finals in 2023-24.
With the Tocchet domino having fallen, things could move quickly with the Flyers job, especially with six other jobs, not including Vancouver, vacant. Anaheim, Boston, Chicago, New York (Rangers), Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and now Vancouver are all looking for new coaches, while no final decision has been made about Andrew Brunette’s future in Nashville.
The Flyers have yet to reveal much about their coaching search, but Tocchet, interim coach Brad Shaw, and Western Michigan’s Pat Ferschweiler are widely speculated to be in consideration. On March 27, Brière said it was “too early” to get into specifics about whom the Flyers would target but noted that “someone who can teach” their young players would be high on the list of priorities.
» READ MORE: Flyers prospect Alex Bump won an NCAA title with Western Michigan. Could his coach join him here?
Tocchet would check the teacher box, as he worked closely from a developmental perspective with young stars like Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman as the head coach in Tampa Bay (2008-10), and with young teams and players like Clayton Keller and Jakob Chychrun in Arizona (2017-21).
He would also bring a proven track record of running a power play. As an assistant, Tocchet oversaw a Pittsburgh Penguins power play led by Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin that clicked at 20.3% from 2014-17 (fifth best during that stretch). In his final season there, the Penguins ranked No. 3 in the league (23.1%) and won their second of back-to-back Stanley Cups.
As a head coach, Tocchet has run a Vancouver power play the last two years that has hummed at 22.6%, and has ranked 15th and 11th, respectively, despite a lot of roster turnover and players coming in and out.
Tocchet has a reputation for being demanding but fair, and his teams tend to have a defense-first foundation focused on structure. While he preaches accountability and discipline, his players say he is very approachable and a good communicator. That usually results in quick buy-in from players and a culture change.
“From a human relationship side, he was just someone that you could always talk to, and, you know, very approachable, has been in your shoes and has an open-door policy,” Canucks captain Quinn Hughes said last year to NHL.com. “I think with the structure and the person he is, I’d say those are the two things that are very rare that, you know, sometimes a lot of people aren’t lucky enough to have.”
While Vancouver had a terrific season in 2023-24, winning its first division title in 11 years, things went south quickly this season, as injuries and internal turmoil between players derailed a season that began with high expectations. The Canucks ultimately traded All-Star J.T. Miller in January, after it had become obvious that he and fellow All-Star Elias Pettersson could no longer coexist.
The rift between Miller and Pettersson reportedly predated Tocchet, but this season took a little bit of the shine off the head coach, and likely played a role in his seeking a fresh start.
Tocchet should get that opportunity quickly, as even beyond the Flyers, he is expected to be a strong candidate for other vacancies this summer.
» READ MORE: Denver’s David Carle is the NHL’s hottest coaching candidate. Could he be the teacher the Flyers are looking for?