It took a while but at least the Flyers didn’t have to look far to eventually find their next head coach.

The team has hired one of their former star players, Rick Tocchet, as the new bench boss. Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli was the first to break the story.

The 61-year-old Tocchet, who has previously coached three NHL teams (Tampa Bay, Arizona, Vancouver), was recently allowed to leave the Canucks after his contract expired. He will now be coming home, in a sense, even though he won all three of his Stanley Cups (one as a player, two as an assistant coach) with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

In addition, Tocchet was a teammate of Flyers current president of hockey operations Keith Jones when the two played together for Philadelphia’s 1999-2000 team that went to the Eastern Conference finals.

Tocchet, a native of Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, also has a longstanding relationship with general manager Danny Briere. The two played together in Phoenix.

In 11 seasons with the Flyers, Tocchet totaled 232 goals and 508 points. For his career, which in addition to Philadelphia and Phoenix included stops in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Boston and Washington, Tocchet played in 1,144 games, scoring 440 goals and 952 points. Plus, he totaled 2,970 penalty minutes and had a plus-84 player rating.

It is the hope of both Briere and Jones that Tocchet can take the Flyers’ rebuild to the next level. Former coach John Tortorella oversaw that task for three seasons. Some progress was made in the 2022-23 season but the team regressed last season, finishing last in the Metropolitan Division.

A sixth-round pick (121st overall) of the Flyers in the 1983 NHL Entry Draft, Tocchet made an almost immediate impact. He helped the team reach the Stanley Cup Finals in 1984-85 and again in 1986-87.

“The Flyers helped me become a man,” Tocchet said during his induction speech into the Flyers Hall of Fame in 2021.

No doubt that has played a part in Tocchet’s decision to return to Philadelphia.

“I’ll always have Flyers’ blood in me,” Tocchet said. “I don’t care if you go other places, win Cups in other places – the relationships, the people that I’ve met over the years being in the organization, it’s just been incredible.”

Tocchet has been talked about as a potential Flyers coach in years past. He showed his talent as a coach two seasons ago when he took the Canucks to a 50-win season and a Pacific Division title. For that, he won the Jack Adams Trophy (coach of the year). The team lost a tough seven-game playoff series to Edmonton in the second round. This past season, the Canucks were in the playoff hunt for most of the year but faltered near the end and missed the postseason.

Some of the attraction for coming back to the East Coast might have come from Tocchet wanting to be closer to his family. But the task here will not be an easy one.

The Flyers have missed five consecutive playoff seasons, and are in need of at least one premium player at center, some more size and depth on defense and there are still a lot of question marks about the goaltending (Samuel Ersson, Ivan Fedotov, Aleksei Kolosov).

On the bright side, Tocchet will have some young talent to work with, including Matvei Michkov, Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink.

Although there will be some pressure to get the Flyers into contention, management knows it’s usually a long, slow process. It’s been that here, though Jones and Briere have only been at the helm for the past two years.

The important thing is that Tocchet has the ability to develop young, up-and-coming talent. And no doubt he will be well-received by the Flyers’ fan base, especially those supporters who go back to the 1980s when the Flyers were in the midst of a streak of 18 consecutive playoff appearances.

Originally Published: May 14, 2025 at 2:24 PM EDT