If they hire a former Flyer and still try to tell me it’s “A New Era of Orange”, I’m going to fight Jonesy. I’ll probably lose, but I’m still going to try, which is more than I can say about the Flyers front office if they end up hiring a former-Flyer with little success as the next head coach.
UPDATE: I really hate it here. The news is official. I need to digest further, but I am not backing off my take that this is a remarkable amount of the same ole shit. The fact that 3 other clubs wanted Tocchet doesn’t do anything for me.
Every reliable hockey reporter is saying this is going to happen, which, as you can clearly read below, I figured and think is a terrible idea aside from the slogan finally getting an update (if not officially, definitely in GENY t-shirt form). Seravalli and Friedman are saying they are closing in on another member of Bobby Clarke’s boys. This changes the calculus for what else needs to happen this offseason. There HAS to be more coming to make this a playoff team.
Welcome back to this serialized look at all of the different decisions that the Flyers have to make from now until puck drop opening night in about 5 months. We took a look at the first half of the first round of the upcoming NHL Draft here, and now it’s time to look at the coaching decision that Danny and Jonesy need to figure out, because every hockey writer on the continent is circling where Rick Tocchet will land. It feels like the decision will come sooner rather than later.
To put it simply, please don’t hire Rick Tochhet. For all that is good and holy, this is not the answer if the team’s goal is to take a step towards contending. If the goal is to rip it down to the studs and be the worst team in the league for the explicit purpose of having a 25% chance at getting the first overall pick in the 2026 draft, and as a result, the next exceptional-status prospect, Gavin McKenna. Now, if that’s the intended direction, it’s certainly a choice, but as I have said more than once, THAT’S A DUMB IDEA! It’s not a certainty, so it makes no sense to bank on an uncertainty.
With that being said, here’s a look at Toccet’s career as a head coach (thanks, Wikipedia, remember kids, it is a valid source no matter what your teacher says!):
So, what’s there to glean from this? Well, Rick’s had 3 stints as a head coach, twice with teams amid a rebuild and most recently with a roster that could be described as a playoff-caliber team if not a full-blown contender. In six full seasons across his career, he’s taken squads to the ‘yoffs twice, although one of those was the extended COVID playoffs that saw teams that normally wouldn’t be included inserted. The really telling information is from Tocchet’s tenure with Tampa Bay and Arizona. Both teams were in a similar position that the Flyers’ currently find themselves in, a rebuild. Rick took both previous rebuilding teams to better than the basement, but not the playoffs either, just somewhere in the mushy middle that the Flyers know all too well.
The Flyers cannot afford a return trip to this proverbial no-man’s land. Attendance is representative of the fanbase, and this team is struggling to resonate as sellouts are rare, and the building has lost the intimidating aura it held for roughly the first thirty years of its existence. The thought of hiring a former Flyer makes me think that this is still the same old team that has made the decision that closely adheres to the “Bobby Clarke Country Club” mentality that steered the ship for far too long. At least they can change the slogan to “The Exact Same F@%#ing Era of Orange,” though, so there’s that.
