It’s long past the time that Rick Tocchet was the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks, but the Philadelphia Flyers’ bench boss is bringing the lessons he learned in 2024–25 to the new young core he’ll help lead. In an interview with Spittin’ Chiclets, Tocchet described some of the things he would have approached differently during his time in Vancouver.
It’s long past the time that Rick Tocchet was the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks, but the Philadelphia Flyers’ bench boss is bringing the lessons he learned in 2024–25 to the new young core he’ll help lead. In an interview with Spittin’ Chiclets, Tocchet described some of the things he would have approached differently during his time in Vancouver.
“I actually learned a lot in Vancouver because we had different personality guys,” he explained, going into the different types of communication styles that work best for each individual player.
One other facet that Tocchet discussed was team identity — something that many debate that Vancouver still has issues with even now.
“I think we were a really good team at what we were good at,” the former Canucks coach expressed. “We weren’t the greatest rush team, even though on our up-twos we’d score half-decently, we weren’t bad in the league that way, but we weren’t the greatest rush team, and I kind of read into it too much. Then all of a sudden in training camp, all we did was rush drills, and we did all these different drills and we got away from who we were. We were a really good team without the puck and we’re a damn good forechecking team.”
Vancouver’s struggles during Tocchet’s last year with the team were well-documented. From injury woes to the infamous “rift,” there were plenty of reasons for anyone to want to depart from the organization. Tocchet insists that his move to Philadelphia didn’t have to do with any of those things — rather, that it was more-so due to differences in what he wanted from his career.
“It was hard. It was emotional because I love Patrik Allvin, Jim Rutherford was great to me, the owner was unreal to me. It was hard to leave. I don’t want to get into the reason why I left but it was a tough one. They stepped up, they offered me a good amount of money. They did what I thought was very very fair. Personally wanted to do something else, and I believe that team is going to be good. It’s in good hands with Adam Foote, I think he’s going to be a hell of a coach.”
Despite the serious reasons for leaving Vancouver, Tocchet did poke a little fun at his former team, citing the importance of having a network of people to lean on when coaching in a Canadian market. “I’m an expert now, I just survived Vancouver Twitter. If you can survive that, that’s like climbing the mountain. They’re tough.”
As difficult as it may be in some aspects, Tocchet did note that coaching in a Canadian market, Vancouver in particular, has many positives when the team is winning. While there may be lots of scrutiny from fans and media alike — something he also touched on during the interview — ultimately, he recognizes that this just means that the city cares.
“How can you complain? You’re getting 24/7 coverage, right? Other cities don’t get much coverage for hockey. We’re getting [it] 24/7. So how can you complain? They’re filling the seats. Obviously the media is doing a good job of creating interest, right?”
One part of his argument for why Vancouver is a “top-five” city to play and win hockey in was the surrounding areas of Vancouver — not just the metro-hub itself. Surrey, in particular, got a shoutout from Tocchet.
“We just went to the second round and they acted like we were in the finals,” he said. “There’s two streets [in Surrey] and they’d have, I don’t know, 20–30,000 people just on the streets just watching the game, and this is like half an hour from [Vancouver].”
While things evidently didn’t go as planned last year, Tocchet was quick to sing the praises of his former team. With key players now healthy and his former assistant coach now head of the bench in Vancouver, Tocchet believes the team will make some noise this year.
“They’ve got some really good players. Obviously, Quinn Hughes is all-world. When you have a guy like that on your team, things fall into place. I think [Elias] Pettersson’s going to really have a good year, I hear he had a great summer. And then you have a healthy Demko and Lankinen, probably top-three, four goalie tandem in the league? With that defence? They’re going to be in every game. They’re in good shape, they’ll be fine.”
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