by Bob Herpen
Phanatic Hockey Editor
Signed to a reported 5-year contract with a mandate to get the Philadelphia Flyers over the hump of also-rans and turn them into playoff contenders and ready-for-primetime players, Rick Tocchet’s first year as a head coach for the team which drafted him can be called a qualified success.
Exactly 382 days ago, my first offering at the resurrected Phanatic concerned the Tocchet’s hiring, the cherry on top of Comcast Chairman and Chief Executive Officer/Flyers governor Dan Hilferty’s nostalgic fever dream.
It was another dip into the well of former Flyers in close-quartered hockey decision making which already included GM Danny Briere, president of hockey ops Keith Jones, alongside John LeClair and Patrick Sharp.
Looking back, much of the column was a string of cogent, but runaway thoughts and projections based on a press conference long on good feelings but short on insight into Tocchet’s selection. None of that matters, for the moment.
After a mad dash to a playoff berth on the heels of a deep trough in mid-season, Tocchet appeared on the franchise ledger as the 7th head coach to complete a full first season behind the bench and guide his club to a playoff berth – following Keith Allen, Mike Keenan, Paul Holmgren, Ken Hitchcock, Dave Hakstol and Alain Vigneault. Among these, only Keenan, Holmgren, Hitch and AV won a round.
What’s more, he received the good kind of public vote of confidence from Briere on front office break-up day, May 14.
“I think he did a great job,” Briere admitted. “I knew him as a teammate, I watched him from afar when he was coaching (in Pittsburgh & Arizona). I was really impressed by how involved he was with the players.”
Time will tell what the front office expects from Tocchet next year. Though Briere cautioned against the inflation which infected previous regimes, expectations will be raised and will be based on the work on and off ice Briere apparently observed from Tocchet since he took over.
“The amount of time he was spending on the ice, after practices, other coaches are gone, it was really impressive how he stayed and worked with guys individually,” Briere noted. “The relationship that he had with the players, you saw some of the clips that were played in the dressing room after games. There’s a connection there.”
A caveat: among the five, including Tocchet, to make the playoffs following a full first year at the helm, only Keenan and Hitchcock returned to the postseason the next year.
With apologies to a former colleague who’s still plugging away in the same fashion after all these years, here’s the Good, the Bad & the Ugly of Tocchet’s initial season.
Good - Philly on the radar
If you believe the sports-talk-radio-fueled philosophy that an NHL city needs to be “relevant” to attract free agents, prospects and other high-end talent, Tocchet might have created a haven here. Briere seemed all too eager to back his bench boss.
“He’s known as a ‘player’s coach,’ I’ve heard that from many agents,” Briere continued. “I’ve gotten a lot of comments from agents that their players would certainly be open to playing here because of Rick Tocchet.”
That confidence apparently also stretched to Tocchet's recognition that players like Denver Barkey and Alex Bump -- both of whom started the year in Allentown -- were an integral part of the club's late-season success. Briere even admitted Tocchet's belief in Bump saved him from an early trip back to the AHL after his early March call up. 
Courtesy of the Associated Press
Given plenty of operating room within the salary cap thanks to its expected increase, some badly-needed money off the books and a burning need to address that perennially nagging 1C need, Briere should set out to help Tocchet ASAP.
Whether intended or unintended due to the flood of young players who comprised the NHL roster by the end of the regular season, the atmosphere in the room seems to be an exciting, collegial one. A late-season charge to an unexpected playoff spot helps foster that atmosphere in a bubble, but the full-season grind starting in September will go a long way towards determining if that was a mirage.
Defensively sound, differently
John Tortorella’s methods were clear: at all costs and at all times, clog up the passing lanes and shooting lanes whenever and wherever possible with no fear of the puck.
Tocchet’s system which aided goaltender Dan Vladar by “cutting the net in half” and reducing the number of shot attempts and shots on goal without physically wearing on the roster, worked wonders for his and the club’s overall up front numbers.
The Flyers surrendered just 25.5 shots per contest (only Carolina, Vegas & Ottawa yielded fewer) and ranked 9th in total goals allowed with 243. Vladar met his career-best workload with regular-season highs in total saves (1162 on 1283 shots) goals-against average (2.42), tied in save percentage (.906), while personally facing 24.6 shots per appearance. In the playoffs, those were 271/294 (.922) and two shutouts among his 4 victories.
Their 243 total goals surrendered were the fewest for an uninterrupted season since Dave Hakstol’s last full season of 2017-18 (also 243).
Bad - More offense required
The same philosophy which helped Vladar by “cutting the net in half” and reducing the number of shot attempts and SOGs unfortunately provided an obstacle for generating chances where it counts.
The Flyers finished 28th in the league (only the Blues, Stars, Rangers & Blackhawks averaged fewer) with 25.5 SOG per game. Their 250 total goals – most for a full season since 2017-18 (251) ranked 10th in the East. In an era of boosted offense, However, their 240 goals in regulation/overtime push that average down from 3.04 to a pedestrian 2.92.
Plus, among the eight Eastern playoff teams, the Flyers’ total goals ranked last, a whopping 22 behind Ottawa.
The Orange and Black haven’t seen a season’s average end well above three goals per, since 2011-12 (264 total goals, 3.21 per game; 260 reg/OT goals, 3.17 per game) and will need both a tweak in philosophy and more confidence in their puck release to increase their scoring in all phases. The hope over here is that longer-term solutions to this issue, like inclusion of Bump and Porter Martone onto the roster from the start of the season, as players who are more willing to shoot no matter where, will boost these numbers.
Keeping Focus
You can actually pinpoint the second the Flyers’ season ripped in half. On Jan. 6, they were relatively healthy at 22-12-7, 4 points out of first in the Metro and in solid playoff position. Then, the Old Time Hockey circus atmosphere consumed the hosts as they beat Anaheim, 5-2, while Stepford Fans piled on Ducks winger William C. Gauthier.
Tocchet said he loved the home response. The players had shit-eating grins postgame.
From all the energy expended to gain that meaningless, out-of-conference win, a freefall of 3-9-4 up to the Olympic break featured key injuries, lotsa fatigue and questionable decisions beyond roster roulette from Tocchet like that last-minute practice on Jan. 14 ahead of travel to – and a loss against – Buffalo.
That, right there, is the reason the Orange and Black needed a mad dash to a playoff berth in the first place. It worked this year. Odds are against them if they wind up on the same trajectory next year.
It’s up to the coaching staff and Tocchet as the head of the spear, to understand that an even keel at all times is the way. Perhaps this will be Briere’s greatest test of communication between off-and-on-ice philosophies: any change in culture has to extend to correction of a head coach who’s mentality on certain issues remains stuck in the 1980s.
Ugly - Странный человек
Following the break-up pressers several weeks ago, there are more questions about the ebb of this relationship than answers, given the overwhelming responses from the rest of the young core that the atmosphere “in the room” is great for development because so many players have peers their age and experience to work with and learn alongside.
Tocchet can’t really claim to be so much of an open-minded, input-friendly players’ coach if even one player seems to be left behind – whether it be due to long-term injury, differences in temperament or a language barrier – especially if it happens to be a high-level draftee tagged as a franchise cornerstone whose rookie season under the previous regime looked far more promising.
Perhaps it’s even as simple as majority rules and with Michkov the loose end that needed to make more effort to gain the head coach’s trust, but we’ll never know. We got plenty of almost-certainly-leaked news bites through the beats plenty of times from the start of the season until the end, when he was benched for Jett Luchanko in an elimination game.
We never got Michkov’s side of the story and most likely never will. Concurrent with being a petty, snide way to conduct business, it must have had the intended effect, as we found out in Tocchet’s presser that Michkov was already doing laps.
I’d put the breakdown of responsibility for improving the relationship going forward at 80/20 for Tocchet, with Michkov’s 20 percent revolving around mandatory offseason English lessons while he’s skating like a madman to watch that chicken fat go.
The power play
Although this particular task was delegated to Yogi Svejkovsky, Tocchet brought him on as an assistant and stuck him with the responsibility, so his name goes with the blame. The raw numbers: 37-for-235 during the regular season (15.7%, 32 out of 32 teams); 3-for-36 (8.33%; 14 out of 16 teams) in the playoffs.
These issues are not acutely Flyers specific. Both the high-scoring Buffalo Sabres (21st at 19.5%) and Colorado Avalanche (27th at 17.1%) suffered through inexplicably awful regular seasons and tepid playoffs with the man advantage.
Not having the requisite shooters rests on GMs Chuck Fletcher and Briere – including the late-season trade of one-time NCAA scoring leader Bobby Brink; a chronic inability to shoot lies with the players themselves where confidence can’t be taught; the system itself and its ineptitude points directly at Svejkovsky.
Tocchet may not have an answer to fixing the acute on-ice issues, but during his farewell conference, he laid down a comprehensive method to overhauling hearts and minds which convinced me he’s at least committed to seeing the potential resolution of a nagging issue from all angles. Interesting that it was not an organic response, but one that was prompted by a local writer. More on that in later posts this summer.
The inclusion of Bump and Martone more often in the mix on either PP unit might be the ice-level spur needed.
Next week, be sure to check in as The Phanatic examines Danny Briere's third season at the helm.
