It was interesting, Elliotte Friedman really went hard on a report that they weren't as interested as it appeared a couple of days ago, and then some were saying they were but Tocch might prefer a different job. Still, he was always the favorite.
1 playoff appearance in 9 years and a lot of money. I dunno. He seems like Torts-lite and the Flyers are just so parochial. I loved to see that they interviewed Feschweiler and would have preferred Shaw if they must stay orange
I think he's a pretty good choice, if not an exciting one other than the fact that he's Rick Tocchett. You can definitely pick apart his track record even if some of it was not his fault. And of course you can view it as the same-old-same-old though I'm not sure promoting the assistant (and longtime Torts guy) or Jones' college linemate would have been any less parochial.
He is probably the right guy for the fence the Flyers want to sit on for the next two years. Teach, develop, improve the PP but also win. Shelf life of most NHL coaches these days is only 2-3 years anyway, if he lasts longer it was a good hire and if not it wasn't necessarily worse than any other one.
The AHL and NHL assistant coach candidates were probably the better choices but Flyers are very media and brand name conscious and that surely worked against Shaw and Fersch too.
The guy they really missed out on, multiple times now, is Jim Montgomery, who was in the organization for a long time.
Tocchet over the last two years is 88-53-23
He's only available because Winnipeg is a second class org.
I'm pretty mixed on Tocchet too. As I've said before, he is my favorite Flyer player of all time, but I'm not wildly enamored of his coaching resume and results.
I would have gone hard for Sullivan (and maybe they did), but it seems like Tocchet was the target all along.
I guess we'll have to see how much authority he has as HC, what systems he implements, what plans he has for improving the PP and PK and how the players respond to the hire. This is his old friends network gig which concerns me, but I'll give him rope to see what happens.
I'm smiling imagining which of the two Canadian cities would take greater offense at the confusion.
I don't think the Flyers ever had a shot at Sullivan. He's expected to win a Cup immediately in NY, and he's Torts' pal. Of course so is Shaw. Will be interesting to see if he stays on. I think it's fine if he does and they didn't cut the goaltending coach loose either, but Tocch might want some of his own people.
Tocchet was Sullivan's assistant coach when they won those Cups.
And coached the Pen's top 5 PP, though how much was him and how much Crosby, Malkin, Kessel and Letang?
So he's part of the Torts coaching tree. Better communicator than Torts.
Think he reflects Briere's preference, he wants an aggressive, up tempo forechecking team that's defensively responsible but can create off the rush. Flip the ice and attack.
Still pretty amazing though. He was allegedly palling around with a mobster and (not allegedly) with a dirty cop and gambling wasn't legal (and still isn't in that kind of context). He did no time and served his two-year suspension but it should still be in every story about him (and Janet Jones too).
If it happened today they all would have gotten presidential pardons!