Hiring Rick Tocchet shows the Flyers know who they are and how far they have to go.
GM Danny Brière was quick to note that the rebuild isn't over just because Tocchet is here. That acknowledgement was important in terms of the franchise's long-term potential for success.
Matvei Michkov is 20 years old. He was 15 the last time the Flyers won a playoff series. He was 13 the last time the Flyers played a postseason game in the arena that, for the moment, is still known as the Wells Fargo Center. He was not yet 8 when they last won a playoff series that wasn’t contested in a COVID-forced bubble.
Matvei Michkov is, in many regards, the future of the Flyers, and he, more than most 20-year-old professional athletes from mountain cities in Russia, has an appreciation for the best aspects of the franchise’s history.
But as the organization’s leaders reintroduced Rick Tocchet to Philadelphia on Friday, this time as the team’s head coach, it was worth considering how people perceive the Flyers, how someone Michkov’s age might perceive the Flyers, and, most important, how the Flyers perceive themselves.
If you’re a baby boomer or a Gen Xer or even an elder millennial — the kind of person who says, “Watching a YouTube video of nothing but Gary Thorne hockey calls is my jam” — you’re probably inclined to view the Tocchet hire through the prism of nostalgia. Maybe you remember fondly those terrific Flyers teams of the mid-1980s, when Tocchet was a young, emerging star under Mike Keenan’s iron fist.
Maybe you’re even old enough to remember those Flyers Stanley Cup-winning clubs of 1974 and 1975, and don’t mind when they dip into the waters of their past. And they’ve definitely been dipping. Tocchet, Keith Jones as team president, Danny Brière as general manager, John LeClair and Patrick Sharp as advisers — every day in Voorhees will be an alumni reunion.
Now, there’s a flip side to this rosy view of the Tocchet hire, of course. The most common objection to it so far has been the obvious one: that the Flyers have been too insular for too long, and hiring a head coach with direct and strong ties here is nothing but a repeat of the same overriding mistake that has kept the franchise Cup-less for 50 years. The complaint is understandable to an extent, but it doesn’t quite apply here.
Tocchet hasn’t been a member of the Flyers’ organization in more than a quarter-century, was a head coach for three other NHL teams, and was the consensus top available candidate once the New York Rangers hired Mike Sullivan. He might succeed here. He might fail. Either way, the fact that he played here a generation ago won’t have much to do with it. Reducing him to just another ex-Flyer retread is like reducing A.J. Brown to just another troublesome wide receiver. Not every athlete or coach fits the handy, familiar, negative stereotype.
The truth is that the decision to hire Tocchet is more revealing for what it says about how Brière, Jones, and team governor Dan Hilferty view the Flyers in the landscape of the modern NHL. Before taking any questions at Friday’s news conference, Brière made a point of saying, “The plan doesn’t change,” meaning that Tocchet’s presence wasn’t a signal that the team’s rebuilding efforts were ending. After all, how could they end?
The Flyers have seven picks in the first two rounds of this year’s draft, a great opportunity to collect more top-end talent to help them for years to come, and their goaltending situation at the NHL level is one giant question mark. They’re not ready to compete for a championship and won’t be for a while, and it would be ridiculous for them to start trading away picks and young players to try to win now just because of Tocchet.
“Rick has been part of this before,” Brière said. “We see him as the long-term solution for our head coaching position.”
Brière used the right phrase there: long-term. The Flyers don’t have to rebuild just their team. They have to rebuild their image, their brand, their esteem around the NHL and within the Philadelphia market.
Michkov and the players and prospects who will chart the franchise’s course — the players and prospects who are already here, the players and prospects whom Brière and Jones might yet acquire — have no first-hand knowledge or fond memories of who the Flyers used to be. They know the Flyers as the Flyers have been for the last decade or so. And the Flyers of the last decade or so have stunk.
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Tocchet paid some lip service Friday to the old trope that NHL players want to play in Philadelphia, that the Flyers maintain some mystique that makes them attractive. That notion was true once, but not anymore. And it didn’t help matters that, regardless of John Tortorella’s contributions as head coach, lots of players (and free agents) viewed the idea of playing for him the way small children view an annual visit to their great-aunt’s house. Awww, I don’t wanna. Do we have to?
“There’s no doubt that Rick is going to make us more enticing for players to come here,” Brière said. “There’s no doubt about that.”
No, there isn’t, and there’s no doubt that they need the help. The Flyers have been humbled over the last 10-12 years, and they need to be humble if they’re going to be a great team again. At least they see themselves clearly. It’s a start.