The Flyers’ reputation for hiring ex-players is overblown when it comes to coaches. Rick Tocchet’s a different case altogether.

Tocchet is only the sixth former Flyer to be named coach, and four of the first five were promoted organically after paying their dues internally.

Rick Tocchet was inducted into the Flyers Hall of Fame in 2021, but ge hasn't had any connections to Philly since he retired in 2001-02.Read moreSTEVEN M. FALK / Staff Photographer

by Jackie Spiegel

Published May 15, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET

The Flyers have hired Rick Tocchet as their new head coach, and you may be thinking to yourself, yeah, this New Era of Orange has a distinctly old appearance.

Is it truly the same old Flyers?

Sure, president Keith Jones, general manager Danny Brière, and Tocchet all wore Flyers jerseys during their playing days. But each one’s return to the fold was not a straight line, and Tocchet‘s was the curviest of all. The former power forward, who played 621 games in Philly, had not been part of the organization for 23 years and spent those two decades serving as an assistant coach, head coach, and TV analyst.

“It‘s interesting, the Flyers, when you talk about loyalty, like I played two games for the Philadelphia Flyers ... but I feel like I’m part of the family. I still get emails from the alumni. ... So, when I think about loyalty, I think about the Flyers, and I thought about Rick Tocchet,” former Flyers forward Wes Walz, an assistant coach on Tocchet‘s staff with the Tampa Bay Lightning from 2008 to 2010, told The Inquirer recently.

“He’s just a loyal guy. He’ll go to bat for you if he loves you. ... He’s as loyal as loyal can be.”

Loyalty is deeply rooted in the Orange and Black. Beyond Brière and Jones, several other people inside the organization have laced up their skates for the Flyers — notably senior advisors Bill Barber, Bob Clarke, and Paul Homgren, special advisors John LeClair and Patrick Sharp, and pro scout Dave Brown.

But the bench boss is a different story.

The Flyers have been playing hockey since 1967, and Tocchet is the 25th coach in the organization’s 57-season history (the 2004-05 season was lost due to a lockout). It‘s not a great stat that a coach typically lasts just over two seasons with the club — although it seems short stints are the norm now in the NHL — and it‘s a bit of a misnomer as Terry Simpson, Wayne Cashman, Craig Ramsay, Scott Gordon, Mike Yeo, and, recently, Brad Shaw, all lasted a year or less, with many being interim coaches.

Subtract those six guys, and that leaves 18 coaches who stood behind the Flyers’ bench for at least a season, with two-time Stanley Cup champion Fred Shero’s seven seasons leading the way. And how many of those 18 are ex-Flyers? Five. Just five have been former Flyers, and none of the last hires: John Tortorella, Alain Vigneault, and Dave Hakstol. The last was Craig Berube, who is currently leading his former team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, in the Stanley Cup playoffs. His Flyers tenure ended 10 years ago after 161 games.

Unlike Tocchet, who spent 16 of the past 23 years as either an assistant coach or head coach across five NHL teams outside the Philly area, Berube was an internal hire for the Flyers. Earning a Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues in 2019 after he left, Berube worked his way from American Hockey League assistant to head coach to NHL assistant across 10 seasons before getting the top job.

John Stevens, who only played nine games for the Flyers before retiring due to injury, did the same. He started as a Phantoms assistant before getting the top job for six years, making the playoffs four times and winning the Calder Cup in 2005. He became an assistant coach under Ken Hitchcock before “Hitch” got axed, and he got tapped to lead the way.

Barber, one of the franchise’s greatest ever players, got the internal promotion after working several jobs in the Flyers organization when he was forced to retire at 32 due to a knee injury. The two-time Cup champion was an assistant coach, a pro scout, and a head coach in the minors — capturing the Calder Cup with the Phantoms in 1998 — before becoming an assistant under Ramsay. After Ramsay got fired, Barber got the gig and won the Jack Adams Award that year before getting booted by his buddy Clarke after the next season.

“I’ll be honest, I wasn’t quite a fit. I had no regrets,” Barber, the last Flyers coach to win Coach of the Year, told The Inquirer recently. “... I’m kind of an old-school guy, you know, and my tolerance is probably zero, and that doesn’t work too well, even back then.”

And then there is Holmgren, who was also elevated to the top job after serving as Mike Keenan’s assistant for three years. Tocchet will now be the second guy to play for the Flyers, leave, get experience, and return. The other guy? Terry Murray, who boasts the best fourth-best regular season winning percentage in Flyers history (.627) and the second-best playoff one (.609) behind Vigneault. He led the Flyers to three straight deep postseason runs, including the 1997 Stanley Cup Final.

Every single former Flyer-turned-coach has led his team to the postseason, with Holmgren and Stevens also taking them to the Conference finals. The same cannot be said for several other coaches, notably the recently fired Tortorella, one of eight Flyers bench bosses who never played an NHL game.

“I do think that matters,” Walz said, when asked if having a coach with NHL experience as a player helps a team. “Because there’s going to be times during the season where you’re not always going to agree with a coach, or things are going to go wrong, and when that coach walks into the locker room and it‘s time to put his foot down, the guy that‘s speaking has been there, done that. He’s been in the trenches. He’s gone through difficult times. He’s been there, and I think that‘s a huge quality to have to be like a head coach in the National Hockey League.”

Yes, Tocchet played for the Flyers. Yes, he is the sixth guy to play for the club and take the top spot behind the bench. But so did Berube with the Leafs. And Rod Brind’Amour with the Carolina Hurricanes, Lindy Ruff with the Buffalo Sabres, Jim Montgomery with the St. Louis Blues, Scott Arniel with the Winnipeg Jets, and the recently fired Peter Laviolette with the New York Rangers. That was just this season of ex-players with their old clubs.

If anything, there’s added pressure, especially when trying to turn an organization you hold dear around. And now all that pressure is on the shoulders of Rick Tocchet.