Flyers

Report: Rick Tocchet Will Be the Next Flyers Head Coach

By Kyle Pagan

Published: May 14th, 2025 · 2:14 PM EDT

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Rick Tocchet is the next Flyers head coach, according to ASF:

Rick Tocchet will be the next head coach of the Flyers. Sounds like the deal is in the range of five years, $25 million total.

— Anthony SanFilippo (@AntSanPhilly) May 14, 2025

If the Flyers wanted to make a choice that would divide the generations of their fanbase they certainly made the correct one. The old school guys are going to love this because the Flyers seem to be getting back to Flyers Hockey. Who better to hire than the guy who is the all-time leader in Gordie Howe Hat Tricks? The younger faction of the fanbase is going to hate this because it looks like another Flyers retread. Sidenote: The NHL is truly one of a kind when it comes to retread head coaches. The league has no problem giving more and more opportunities to guys with no track record of winning. It ain’t my money so who cares, but $5 million a year would put Tocchet in the top five of highest-paid coaches in the league. That’s wild. He’s made the playoffs two times in his career.

I don’t understand this move and still didn’t two weeks ago. Here’s what I wrote then:

In my astute opinion (a childhood of street hockey) this doesn’t feel like the move that makes sense. You’re hiring another guy in his 60s that coaches with intensity. Isn’t this a guy who is going to want to win now? Aren’t the Flyers trying to lose to acquire talent? Why hire a guy who is going to make them play balls to the wall night in and night out when you want a high draft pick? Sure, he won the Jack Adams a couple seasons ago, but hiring Tocchet doesn’t seem like it fits into the Flyers’ current plan at all. Danny Briere has already said they’re rebuilding. They were sellers the last two deadlines. The last coach quit because of this. But they have seven picks in the first two rounds this year. Is Tocchet gonna be on board with that?

Now from what I’ve read, it seems like Tocchet is more of a players’ coach than Torts was. He is, though, more defensive minded, which is interesting when your best player is a generational forward. But when it comes to the organization, it feels like the Flyers are just continuously circling the drain and finding themselves in hockey purgatory with no plan. Would anyone be shocked if the Flyers find themselves three years from now in a still quasi-rebuild? It feels like those Sixers years from 2004-2013 before they went all-in on The Process. They’d consistently play themselves into the 7th or 8th seed in the East, get swept in the first round, and miss out on the lottery while hiring coaches like Doug Collins and Mo Cheeks, who had ties to the franchise. I guess if Flyers fans are okay with no clear direction or no clear plan, Tocchet is a good hire. At least it should be exciting:

Here’s some good insight into the Flyers thinking from Anthony at OnPattison.com. As you know, Ant is plugged in to that organization as much as anyone:

For the Flyers, hiring Rick Tocchet is about more than nostalgia – it’s a calculated move that reveals how the franchise intends to continue to rebuild its culture. 

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Tocchet stood out as an ideal candidate for several reasons. First, his philosophy aligns with the Flyers’ new priorities. Brière has emphasized that the next coach needed to have Tocchet’s well-known coaching traits. 

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Secondly, Tocchet’s arrival signals the organization’s desire to reconnect with the proud Flyers identity without living in the past. 

Team President Keith Jones and GM Danny Brière – both former Flyers themselves – have spoken about restoring a culture of competitiveness and pride in the logo. By bringing in Tocchet, they’ve added a coach who intimately understands the “Flyers way” but also has fresh, outside experience and a modern NHL coaching pedigree. 

I don’t have a problem with the philosophy of rebuilding the culture. The Flyers have stunk since the pandemic and there’s not much to be proud of. What I don’t understand is this love for the Flyers’ identity. You can say they don’t want to live in the past, but that’s exactly what they’re doing when the Flyers talk about identity. The “identity” to Flyers fans will always be Broad Street Bully hockey because the organization had their most success during that era. When you think of the Flyers you think of the Bullies and their physical play on the way to two championships. Will a physical, defense-first approach work in today’s game, especially when your best player is on offense? How many guys on the Flyers really care about those teams, or the Tocchet, Eric Lindros or Mike Richards teams anyway? Probably zero. It just feels like the Flyers continuously are living in the past with everything they do. If the Phillies or Sixers held on to the past like this we’d ridicule them endlessly.