Potential Bruins Coach Comes Off Board With Reported Flyers Move

It appears Rick Tocchet won’t be making a return to the Bruins as head coach.

The one-time B’s forward, who won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s best coach just a year ago, is returning to another stop from his playing days, the one in which he started his career: Philadelphia.

After failing to come to terms with the Vancouver Canucks on a deal that would have kept him there, Tocchet became a coaching free agent and is expected to sign with the Flyers to take over behind the bench in the City of Brotherly Love, NHL insider Frank Seravalli reported Wednesday.

TSN’s Pierre Le Brun relayed similar reporting, and Flyers reporter Anthony SanFilippo said the deal could be a five-year agreement worth $25 million total.

Philly will be the fourth stop of Tocchet’s coaching career. He got his start with the Tampa Bay Lightning before spending four seasons with the Arizona Coyotes. He didn’t break through and reach the playoffs until 2020 in the desert, but he ultimately parlayed that success into his most recent job with the Canucks.

Tocchet’s time in Vancouver was turbulent at times, but he won the Jack Adams in 2023-24 when the Canucks won 50 games before taking the eventual Western Conference champion Oilers to seven games in the second round.

The Bruins were reportedly among the contenders to hire Tocchet, along with the Flyers and Seattle Kraken, according to TSN’s Darren Dreger. Tocchet would have fit the mold of what the Bruins are seemingly trying to build under the brain trust of president Cam Neely and general manager Don Sweeney. They know the former winger well; Tocchet was a teammate of both while playing parts of two seasons with the Bruins in the mid-1990s. Instead, he returns to Broad Street, where he played 621 of his 1,144 NHL games.

It’s unclear just how much interest the Bruins had in hiring Tocchet. Regardless, the hiring cycle is winding down, assuming no other coaches get fired after their respective playoff runs end. There are still a handful of intriguing options on the market, including another former Bruins player, Marco Sturm, who’s reportedly gotten some interest from the club.