Why the Philadelphia Flyers chose Rick Tocchet

It hasn’t been easy to discern, frankly. One could reasonably assume that the Flyers chose to hire Rick Tocchet because they believed he was the best candidate, and people have made that point. But the reasonable follow-up is… why?

Why did they believe that?

It’s not self-evident. There’s nothing in Rick Tocchet’s resume that screams “best candidate available,” his work at every previous stop has been varying degrees of uninspiring. I would assume that the Flyers know that, of course. Which means it’s far from a deal-breaker for them.

When attempting to justify the hire using his resume, Danny resorted to… outright lying, as he tends to do. Danny B. Lyin!

Why do the Flyers like Rick Tocchet?

Charlie asked a really good question this morning about why the Flyers like Tocchet.

Briere mentioned his time in Arizona, saying he elevated teams that were projected to finish last to competitive hockey.

Per Hockey Reference, he finished with 6 points BELOW projected. pic.twitter.com/5oeMgPVcaW

— Justin Giampietro (@justingiam) May 16, 2025

Despite portraying Rick Tocchet’s time in Arizona as bringing a “depleted” roster to genuine competitiveness, Tocchet ended up falling short of preseason expectations on average over his tenure in the desert. At no point did they go from “projected to finish last in the league” to being genuinely competitive.

When they were genuinely competitive, they were projected to be that way in the preseason. So, he’s either lying or he’s totally snookered.

And I wouldn’t discount the latter possibility.

In explaining why, the theme that rises again and again is Rick Tocchet’s skills as a communicator.

And Danny isn’t lying about that. Watch the press conference. Tocchet is objectively a great communicator, and a very charismatic figure in a way that Tortorella never was.

There is, so far, zero evidence that Rick Tocchet’s ability to communicate has had positive effects on the teams he’s head coached. Rather, his teams usually end up right in line with expectations.

However, the present lack of evidence does not preclude the future arrival of evidence. Danny is making a big bet here.

If I had to explain it in the most gracious terms, it would go something like this:

Rick Tocchet thus far has coached places where his communication skills are largely irrelevant. Arizona was a mediocre team that lacked both firepower and the capacity to obtain it in the near future. Vancouver was a troubled team whose talent had largely already peaked in Elias Pettersson and JT Miller, but their one young star became a young generational talent under Tocchet’s watch.

What kind of impact could Tocchet’s communication skills have in a different environment? Say, somewhere that’s flush with cap space and draft picks, ready to arm a roster up for contention in the near future. Led by a rookie whose hockey IQ is generational, and his ability to advance physically will determine if he’s one of the best players to ever live.

What kind of impact could Rick Tocchet’s communication skills have in an environment where most players are used to, frankly, being abused for some misbegotten notion that it’s for their own good? Wouldn’t his communication skills matter in an environment where they’re going from negative communication skills to an objectively excellent communicator?

I really shouldn’t have to explain the Rick Tocchet gamble.

That should be done by the person who made it, but that won’t happen because he’s not asked to explain anything of actual substance.

Could it work? It absolutely could work. Actually, it isn’t dissimilar from the gamble that Bill Zito made on Paul Maurice.

Paul Maurice was disgraced in hockey fan circles after a disastrous ending to his tenure in Winnipeg. After that disaster unfolded, people began to look at the totality of Maurice’s coaching resume. And they found it lacking.

Between 1995 and 2022, Maurice made the conference finals just one time. Nobody has bad rosters for 27 years consecutively. In fact, in 4 years, his teams had a regular season points percentage over .600 and finished with 100 regular season points. None of those occasions were the 1 time he made a final four appearance.

To give that guy the keys to a Ferrari, the assumption wasn’t that Maurice would teach them how to drive in the rain. No, the assumption was that he’d crash it into a tree.

But the assumptions were wrong. The Panthers reloaded in record time, changing their personnel to reflect the priorities of their new head coach. And even Maurice’s greatest skeptics were forced to concede… he’s a brilliant communicator. One of the most charismatic coaches to ever live.

And that charisma came in handy. Maurice generated buy-in to his system like nothing I’ve ever seen. It happened in record time.

Maurice has been able to win contests of tactics against coaches like Jon Cooper, and the fact that he’s smarter than Cooper is unlikely to be the reason.

No, it’s because Maurice can turn his players into chess pieces. Automatons at the flip of a switch. Run through a wall? That’s quaint.

Maurice can get one of the most penalty-happy teams in the league to be extremely disciplined whenever they face the Tampa Bay Lightning in years where they have no answer for the power-play.

He can then turn them loose as penalty-happy monsters who get straight into the heads of the Boston Bruins and render Jim Montgomery’s advanced systems useless, because his players are too rattled to execute them under the bright lights.

Maurice has used communication skills to oversee one of modern hockey’s greatest teams. His success in this latest run will overshadow whatever warts appeared on his former resume.

And it’s because Zito took a gamble on a uniquely gifted communicator, perhaps being snookered by Maurice’s immense charisma, but that gamble paid off more than any in the sport’s recent history.

Zito didn’t do a particularly good job of explaining himself either, because it’s not a great explanation, actually. Bringing in fans to the gamble is hard. Zito didn’t have to. He had a cache of legitimate political capital based on where he’d brought the Panthers already. It was easier to trust Zito.

Briere has done nothing to earn that kind of trust. Even if you think he will, he hasn’t yet. That’s a fact. He should have showed his work in a way that Zito did not. Instead, he’s banking on a different kind of political capital.

The fact that Rick Tocchet is a former Flyer, and that should endear him to as many fans as it alienates. And the fact that even the fans it alienates are developing something awfully akin to Stockholm Syndrome and want the team to succeed in spite of itself… in a way it hasn’t in over a decade.

The Flyers are starting from a low point very much dissimilar to where Maurice was starting with the Panthers. I wouldn’t expect the Cup in October.

Flyers hire Rick Tocchet to lead the next phase of the rebuild, fans rightfully doubt it will be different this time around

But the concept is the same. If the Flyers can find star players to buy into Rick Tocchet the way the Panthers bought into Maurice, then they can maximize their new coach’s unique gift to carry them to the promised land over time.

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