The head coaching search is over for the Philadelphia Flyers or so it would appear.
Now, I want to start with nothing is official as of this writing but all signs are pointing to an announcement being made possibly before the end of the week that Rick Tocchet will be named the Philadelphia Flyers new Head Coach.
Bucci was the first to have the Joel Quinnville to the Ducks and he doesn’t typically post cryptic tweets unless he is all but certain that it is going to happen.
The rumors have been swirling since we found out Tocchet would not be returning to Vancouver, that the Flyers were going to be a top candidate to land him.
Obviously his history here as a player and his relationships with Keith Jones and Danny Briere are major factors. But his style also seems to align with what Briere and Jones want to continue building here.
There has been a lot of critics of the Flyers possibly hiring Tocchet. “Here we go again, another former Flyer getting a job..” Blah blah blah look I get it, they’ve done this before and it usually doesn’t work. But they have tried the other route, (Chuck Fletcher, Dave Hakstol, Alain Vigneault, John Tortorella) all of those guys had no ties to the Flyers organization and look how they turned out.
I don’t even want to get started on Fletcher and Hakstol because this will just turn into a profanity filled rant and thats not what this post is about.
AV was the only one that had a somewhat successful run, and I firmly believe that if COVID didn’t happen that 2019-2020 team was gonna make a Stanley Cup run. We saw what they did in the bubble, but had that season not been paused that team was on a fucking roll.
Torts never made the playoffs, but he did create a culture here that was in desperate need of an overhaul. Do I think he was the guy to keep this thing going? No, but what he provided for this team will hopefully benefit them for years to come.
Tocchet knows what it’s like to play here and wants to be a part of bringing the Stanley Cup back to Philadelphia. When he announced he was leaving Vancouver he stated, “Family is a priority, and with my contract lapsing, this becomes the opportune time. 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 won the Jack Adams award in 2023-24 and really turned around a miserable Vancouver team that season. Granted, this season was all but a disaster for the Canucks but I don’t think all of that falls on Tocchet.
We already know how much he loves the Philadelphia area with his connection to Briere and Jones it all but made sense that he would end up being back here with the coaching vacancy.
Again, nothing is official as of this post, but i’ll be shocked if this doesn’t come to a conclusion by the end of the week.
-Walsh
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