The Philadelphia Flyers are still searching for a new head coach. They’ve been linked to Rick Tocchet, and have interviewed Pat Ferschweiler.
Let’s get into some background. Starting with Ferschweiler, he spent three seasons of his playing career with the Western Michigan Broncos (along with President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones), so it’s only natural that he joined them as an assistant coach in 2010–11. The Detroit Red Wings organization liked what they saw and scooped him up as an assistant in 2014–15 to their American Hockey League (AHL) Grand Rapids Griffins. He was promoted to an NHL assistant for the next four seasons, before re-joining his alma mater as an associate head coach.
He’s already been in the NHL, but Ferschweiler’s legacy has never been stronger since he took over head coaching duties in 2021–22. Coming off a national title and changing Western Michigan’s program forever, he is the ideal Flyers bench boss. Tocchet, despite winning the Jack Adams Award in 2023–24, is not. But why?
Ferschweiler Made the Broncos a Powerhouse
As mentioned, Ferschweiler’s work as the head coach at Western Michigan makes him an ultra-compelling hiring candidate. He helped form one of the best programs in college hockey.
In the four years before his hiring (between 2015–16 and 2018–19), the Broncos compiled a .480 points percentage with zero appearances in the NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament. According to College Hockey News, they had subpar metrics at even strength: a 49.67% goal share, a 48.71% shot attempt share, and a 49.68% unblocked shot attempt share.
The instant Ferschweiler became the full-time head coach following his stint as an associate, a powerhouse was formed. Since 2021–22, the Broncos have accumulated a .675 points percentage, made the NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament each season, and won their first-ever title back in April. Their even-strength metrics have been superb: a 59.85% goal share, a 56.33% shot attempt share, and a 56.44% unblocked shot attempt share.
It’s not like the Broncos magically became a recruiting hotspot, either. Their 2018–19 roster boasted a few players who have seen NHL action: Mattias Samuelsson, Ethen Frank, Wade Allison, Corey Schueneman, Hugh McGing, and Paul Cotter (whose tenure was only eight games, admittedly). The undeniable truth is that Ferschweiler has played a huge role in Western Michigan’s rise to power.
To give you an idea of the potential upside, let’s look at Jim Montgomery’s five seasons with the Denver Pioneers. He had a .667 points percentage, four appearances in the NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament, and a championship title. You can count the number of transformative head coaches in the NHL on one hand—Montgomery has proven to be one of them.
A point worth visiting is Dave Hakstol‘s time in college, which led to him being hired by Philadelphia. He was unable to win a playoff series as the Flyers’ bench boss across four seasons, never quite living up to the hype in the team’s eyes. However, he didn’t necessarily fit the “transformative” bill from the get-go. He built quite the resume with the North Dakota Fighting Hawks, maintaining a .656 points percentage across 11 seasons as the head coach. But he never won anything.
For some context, North Dakota won two national titles in the half-decade prior to Hakstol being brought in as an assistant. They lost in the Frozen Four championship game in his first season as the head coach (2004–05), yet never made it back. Hakstol was a great coach, but did he change a program’s trajectory? Not quite.
Getting back to Ferschweiler, his offenses have thrived. He has had a top-10 offense for total goals in the nation every season since 2021–22, something that only Denver, the Quinnipiac Bobcats, and the Minnesota Golden Gophers can also say. As a bonus, Denver and Minnesota have rostered multiple players taken in the first two rounds of the NHL Draft in that span, while Western Michigan has only had one (Sam Colangelo for 38 games).
Arguably, the best player Ferschweiler rostered was a fifth-round pick in 2022 by the name of Alex Bump—one of the Flyers’ top prospects. He obviously had potential before, but his excellence was unlocked under Ferschweiler. The 21-year-old had 57 more shots on goal than any player in college during 2024–25, and it’s a privilege to have a coach who gives a star that kind of leeway. As a reward for dominating possession, Bump had the green light to do what he felt was best with the puck.
Related: 3 Flyers Prospects Who Can Make the Team in 2025-26
This is important for the Flyers because rookie Matvei Michkov didn’t have a coach like that until his season was basically over. Once he did, with Brad Shaw as the interim, he had 12 points in his final nine games—a pace of 109 in a full 82-game season. Ferschweiler trusts his players while simultaneously being unimaginably successful. That’s exactly what the City of Brotherly Love needs.
Why Rick Tocchet Could Be a Disastrous Hire
If you haven’t seen the rumors, Tocchet, the former head coach of the Vancouver Canucks, is on the open market. He was also a teammate of Jones’s and was seen as a good option before the team hired John Tortorella three years ago. So, no one should be surprised that he’s in the mix again. While Tocchet has connections and his recent Jack Adams Award signifies excellence in the NHL, the fit just isn’t there.
Rick Tocchet, former head coach of the Vancouver Canucks (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images)
Tocchet might have been a decent choice for the 2022–23 Flyers. The team’s only star was Travis Konecny, and needed an identity—that’s why Tortorella made sense, after all. But the Orange and Black’s rebuild is just about over, according to general manager Daniel Brière. Putting Michkov in a position to explode and winning games is up next.
Unfortunately, Tocchet has historically done neither of those. He is the NHL’s only active head coach with 500 games as the bench boss to have made the playoffs less than 25% of the time. He has the unique honor of missing the playoffs in 2009–10 with the Tampa Bay Lightning, getting fired, and then watching that same team advance to the Eastern Conference Final the next spring. As well, he’s never head-coached a squad to a semi-final appearance in any league. Success has evaded him, yet that’s what the Flyers need to be chasing.
It’s not just team-wide success. Clayton Keller had a 90-point season in 2024–25, further establishing his status as a star player in the NHL. The 26-year-old didn’t always look destined for greatness, though. Well, that was until Tocchet and the Arizona Coyotes went their separate ways in the 2021 offseason. Since then, Keller has been flying.
try to guess when rick tocchet was coach pic.twitter.com/8V2tgau4g7
— dom 📈 (@domluszczyszyn) April 30, 2025
Was this just a coincidence, or was Tocchet holding Keller back? The former seems reasonable on the surface, but it wasn’t just Keller who saw a boost post-Tocchet. In fact, it was a lot of the forwards with promise that he inherited.
There were six forward first-round picks from 2013 onward who played under the Coyotes’ Tocchet for at least 500 minutes. In the table below, see how all of them performed in points per 60 minutes with Tocchet versus after their time under his wing, according to Evolving-Hockey:
PlayerPoints Per 60 Minutes with TocchetPoints Per 60 Minutes After TocchetNick Schmaltz2.392.66Clayton Keller2.273.10Max Domi1.972.37Dylan Strome1.662.76Brendan Perlini1.571.30Lawson Crouse1.371.68
Young players tend to get better as they’re older, but not many of them go from draft-bust status to being a point-per-game first-line center on a contender. That happened to Dylan Strome, which may be even more of an indictment than Keller. For a Flyers team that will win through Michkov and the offense, it’s notable that Tocchet brought the opposite in the desert.
Tocchet’s most successful stint as head coach was with the Canucks, but it was also the most drama-filled. Even worse, superstar forward Elias Pettersson was on pace for 101 points over a full 82 games in 2022–23 before Tocchet was hired on Jan. 22 of that season. In his most recent campaign, the Swedish center had 45 points in 64 games—he was unrecognizable.
On Sportsnet‘s Halford & Brough podcast, Tocchet clarified that he was taking initiative. On March 18, he revealed, “We’re just trying to reprogram his brain.”
Wait, doesn’t that sound familiar? Like, almost identical to what Tortorella tried with Michkov, only for the approach to hamper a player who already had too much on his mind? Michkov was the Flyers’ best point-scorer on a per-60 basis, partially thanks to Shaw’s more lenient approach, but trying to change the way star players think about fundamentals does more harm than good, both in theory and in practice. The last thing Philadelphia needs is to go back to that.
In this most recent season, the Canucks’ entire offense underperformed. They were a mess on and off the ice, and Tocchet was at least somewhat responsible. He has more risk and less upside than Ferschweiler.
The 2025 national champion shouldn’t be hired as the Flyers’ head coach just because of his connection with Jones, nor his time with Bump. He should be hired because you don’t get many opportunities to pursue someone with his potential. The Orange and Black must shoot for the stars, not the status quo. Ferschweiler is a superior head coaching candidate to Tocchet.
