The radar has kept pretty calm on the Flyers' coaching search, but Rick Tocchet might've put a blip on it this week.
On Monday, Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman noted on the 32 Thoughts podcast that Tocchet is talking to teams, and that the Flyers are in the mix, but that it's not so much that those interested clubs are interviewing him. It's more that he is interviewing them.
Said Friedman in full from Monday's podcast:
"The line I heard on Tocchet, it made me laugh, is 'He's not interviewing with teams. He's interviewing teams.' Basically, he's interviewing them more than they're interviewing him. So I'm curious to see what's gonna end up here, right?
"I think Seattle had a lot of interest in him. I'm not convinced that's gonna happen. I don't know about Philly. I think he's very high on their list, but I'm just – I'm not sure what's gonna happen there. Boston, the one thing about Boston is Tocchet sees himself as worth a certain market. We know that from his [negotiations] with Vancouver. Boston, historically, hasn't gone there. Like, I think Vancouver's offer was in the [$4 million range]. Boston, historically, hasn't done that. So I don't know. I mean it could work out. I just don't know. But that's what someone said to me about Tocchet: 'Teams aren't interviewing him. He's interviewing them.'" [Sportsnet]
Then on Tuesday, TSN's league insider Darren Dreger added another wrinkle:
Strong indications this week Rick Tocchet will soon land another NHL head coaching job. Philly, Boston, Seattle believed to be among the top contenders. The Flyers want to be aggressive. Good fit.
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) May 13, 2025
If the smoke is building here, we'll probably see where it leads soon enough.
But for now, Tocchet stands as the highest-profile coach remaining on the market, and the one who easily has direct lines drawn to the Flyers because of his history and still existing ties to the organization.
The fit still has to be right, though. He would have to be willing to take the reins of a still-rebuilding team, and as it appears from what Friedman heard, the team has to be just as much of a fit for him.
But the process for the Flyers' coaching search on the whole should pick up now that the draft lottery is over and they know that they're working with the No. 6 overall pick – plus two extra first-rounders from the Avalanche and Oilers later on.
Working in the Flyers' favor, too, is that they're going to have a young and moldable roster, for whoever the coach is, and a star on the cusp of a full-on breakout in Matvei Michkov (more on him later).
It's a much more desirable job than most cynics would think, but on general manager Danny Brière's end, he has to get this hire right.
Anyway, a few more thoughts on the Flyers…
Foerster for the world
Tyson Foerster is skating for Canada at the IIHF Men's World Championship, so are Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim, and Sam Ersson is there, too, as a goaltender for Sweden.
The springtime tournament has always fallen in a weird spot, though. It's recognized international play, sure, but it's the tournament you go to when your NHL club either doesn't make the playoffs or gets bumped from them earlier.
But there might be something major for Foerster to gain from that time.
The 23-year-old wing finished the season strong with a career-high 25 goals to make for back-to-back 20-plus goal runs within his first two full years in the NHL.
He's coming into his own right before everyone's eyes, made himself a core piece of the Flyers' rebuild in the process, and now he's out there skating on a line with Bo Horvat and Nathan MacKinnon – and pulling his weight.
Bo Horvat has his third of the tournament. Excellent play by Tyson Foerster to make it happen. 1-0. #MensWorlds pic.twitter.com/KZvWIs6jeH
— Steven Ellis (@SEllisHockey) May 13, 2025
The time Foerster has now in the spring to skate with and learn from a roster that has stars like MacKinnon, Horvat, Sidney Crosby, and Brayden Schenn, and then the lessons he can take from that into the summer, that could be his springboard to the next level, like into the 30-goal territory.
Worlds can count for something.
Michkov misses the Calder cut
A bit of catch-up on the NHL's end-of-season awards: The Calder Trophy finalists for Rookie of the Year were released last week, and Matvei Michkov wasn't among the top three.
The vote came down to Montreal defenseman Lane Hutson, San Jose's star center Macklin Celebrini, and Calgary goaltender Dustin Wolf.
TOP ROOKIES! 👏
Macklin Celebrini, Lane Hutson & Dustin Wolf are your Calder Trophy finalists — awarded to the NHL’s most outstanding first-year player. #NHLAwards
Find out where the next wave of young talent might be going during tonight's #NHLDraft Lottery which is about to… pic.twitter.com/k14qihgZRx— NHL (@NHL) May 5, 2025
And you know what? That's fine.
Look, Celebrini was near guaranteed to have a spot as a finalist as last summer's No. 1 overall pick, and he did earn it with 25 goals and 63 points in Year 1.
Hutson piled up assists in bunches (60 in total), and his role in helping push the Canadiens toward the playoffs put his narrative over the top.
- MORE FLYERS
- NHL Draft: Six prospects the Flyers could take with the No. 6 pick
- Flyers coaching search primer: Who's available and what they're looking for
- Matvei Michkov wants to be the best in the NHL, Flyers believe he will be
And as for Wolf, any rookie goaltender who keeps a team like the Flames in the playoff hunt for probably way longer than they should've been deserves a nod.
None of that discredits Michkov or where he's going in his ascent to NHL stardom.
His Year 1 was coming over from Russia two years ahead of schedule, and leading the Flyers and the league rookie race with 26 goals despite multiple John Tortorella-dictated benches and scratchings, along with a roster that lacked a true elite center to skate with him.
No matter where the Flyers go from here, Michkov is going to be someone special for them, and he doesn't need the Calder Trophy as a show of that.
If anything, just based on the way he spoke during his cleanout day press conference, not getting considered as a Calder finalist is only going to fuel the 20-year-old toward much, much greater.
Seen a Ghost
Scott Laughton is making a playoff run with Toronto. It was time for him to. He deserved a shot, the value was on the table for him at the trade deadline, and the Flyers were ready to move on.
Sergei Bobrovsky is on the other end of that ice with Florida right now, only adding on to what's become a Hall-of-Fame goaltending career. Flyers fans don't need a reminder of what went wrong there, nor that the team might've had something in Anthony Stolarz, too, before a collision during the Leafs-Panthers series sidelined him with injury.
There are always former Flyers skating throughout the playoffs, with many of them somehow always glaring as decisions made by the organization gone south.
It's felt like it's been this way, really, ever since Mike Richards and Jeff Carter went gliding across the ice hoisting the Stanley Cup in LA Kings uniforms (twice) going well beyond a decade ago now.
I've never been one to dwell on past moves that way. There's never a guarantee that any of these players would've achieved the same results in Philadelphia as they went on to do elsewhere…
But the cut to Monday night's Game 4 between the Hurricanes and Capitals. Shayne Gostisbehere scores the opening goal to send Carolina on the way to a commanding 3-1 series lead and put them just one more win away from the Eastern Conference Final.
Shayne Gostisbehere gets things started in Game 4! 👏 #StanleyCup
🇺🇸: @NHL_On_TNT & @SportsonMax ➡️ https://t.co/4TuyIATi3T
🇨🇦: @Sportsnet or stream on Sportsnet+ ➡️ https://t.co/4KjbdjVctF pic.twitter.com/TdMxreWBMw— NHL (@NHL) May 12, 2025
Remember, in the summer of 2021, former GM Chuck Fletcher traded Gostisbehere, with draft picks, to Arizona for cap relief, or in other words, nothing.
Then he realized that he never filled that hole on the blue line, and spent three more draft picks and $10 million to get a lesser-talented and way lesser-liked version of Gostisbehere in Tony DeAngelo to try and fix it. DeAngelo was gone after a year.
Yeah, the Flyers messed that one up.
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