In his first season behind the bench in Philadelphia, Rick Tocchet brought the Flyers back to the playoffs for the first time in five years. Now, with a full season in his system and another offseason to implement his vision, year two should provide a better indication of what his impact actually looks like. How have Tocchet’s other teams performed in their second season with him behind the bench?
Team results
Let’s start with the most obvious marker of improvement: team records. From that perspective, year two has generally been positive for Tocchet-led teams. In two of his three previous stops, his teams saw a similar jump of roughly 10 percentage points in points percentage from year one to year two under him. Neither Arizona nor Tampa Bay made the playoffs, but both teams still saw meaningful improvement.
The exception was Vancouver, where the improvement was smaller — closer to five percentage points — but arguably more impressive considering the starting point. After Tocchet took over midway through the 2022-23 season, the Canucks went 20-12-4 over their final 36 games, finishing with a points percentage of 61.1. For this comparison, those 36 games are considered Tocchet’s first year behind the bench, since they represent the portion of the season played under his system. Vancouver was 18-25-3 before Tocchet arrived, but those games are excluded because we’re focusing on teams’ performances under Tocchet. In year two, they improved that mark to 66.5 percent, winning the Pacific Division and finishing with the sixth-best record in the NHL.
However, team records only tell part of the story. A jump in wins doesn’t necessarily mean a team is playing dramatically better. It can also be influenced by many things, such as shooting percentage, goaltending, injuries, or changes to the roster. To understand whether Tocchet’s teams actually improved under his system, it’s worth looking beyond the standings and examining their underlying numbers at five-on-five.
The underlying numbers
Looking beyond the standings, Tocchet’s more recent teams showed stronger underlying play in year two. While Tampa Bay remained largely unchanged, both Arizona and Vancouver generated more offense by improving their shot rates across the board (attempts, shots on goal, expected goals) at five-on-five. Defensively, both clubs also cut down on shot quality against, with Arizona climbing from 23rd to 14th in expected goals against per 60 and Vancouver jumping from ninth to sixth while becoming one of the league’s best shot suppression teams.
The Coyotes, while still being much improved in the standings, are perhaps a great example of how the process and results don’t always align. Despite improving in nearly every offensive metric, they scored fewer goals per 60 than the year before. This coincided with a significant decline in team shooting percentage, suggesting poor finishing played a role in masking those improvements. Vancouver experienced the opposite. The Canucks paired similar underlying improvements with some of the highest on-ice shooting and save percentages in the league, allowing the improved process to translate into a Jack Adams-winning season.
Together, Tocchet’s history doesn’t show a coach whose teams have all suddenly become offensive juggernauts in year two. It does, however, show a fairly consistent trend of improved underlying play, especially in his two most recent stops. Of course, this doesn’t all come down to Tocchet. Players come and go, and maybe most importantly, players improve, regress, or stagnate. Coaching is only one part of the equation, which makes individual player outcomes just as important to examine.
Individual success
While the team-level results are largely positive, the individual results are a little more complicated.
Starting with Tampa Bay, year two saw a then-19-year-old Steven Stamkos reach the 50-goal mark for the first time in his career. Rookie Victor Hedman immediately earned Tocchet’s trust, averaging more than 20 minutes per game from the start, while Kurtis Foster enjoyed the most productive season of his career as part of a power play that jumped from 19th to eighth in the NHL. Beyond that, there wasn’t much out of the ordinary. Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis produced at levels that were largely in line with expectations.
Moving to Arizona, one of the bigger knocks on Tocchet’s coaching history comes into view — his handling of offensive talent. Clayton Keller is perhaps the clearest example of a player-coach mismatch. Keller broke out with a 65-point rookie season during both his and Tocchet’s first year with the Coyotes but never came close to matching that production while Tocchet remained behind the bench. Keller maintained his individual shot and chance generation at even strength, but his assist totals cratered, suggesting Arizona’s offensive environment may have limited his playmaking to some degree. The supporting cast in Arizona did leave a lot to be desired, and almost certainly contributed to the team’s lack of offense. However, since Tocchet’s departure, Keller has developed into a legitimate star, consistently producing around a point-per-game pace.
It’s a similar story with Elias Pettersson, albeit with a less happy ending so far. Tocchet took over as Vancouver’s bench boss midway through Pettersson’s 102-point season, but despite the Canucks’ dramatic improvement in year two, Pettersson’s individual production took a noticeable step back, as he appeared to struggle with the more north-south style of play Tocchet emphasized. His game declined even further the following season, and he has yet to resemble the superstar he looked capable of becoming. Unlike Keller, Pettersson’s first season after Tocchet’s departure was not a return to form but rather a continuation of underwhelming play.
Another interesting case is Andrei Kuzmenko. After scoring 39 goals and 74 points in his first NHL season, Kuzmenko quickly fell out of favor, even after a productive 36 games to end the season under Tocchet. In the following season, his production plummeted, he was healthy scratched and eventually traded after producing just 21 points in 43 games. Some of that decline was likely inevitable after an unsustainable shooting percentage in his rookie season, but there was also a drastic change in his role under Tocchet. He went from a top six forward to a third, even fourth line forward at times, making his drop in play still notable beyond statistical regression.
Still, the Canucks saw more success than failure at the individual level that year.
Unlike Arizona, where Tocchet was working with a rebuilding roster, Vancouver had several established stars entering their prime, and many of them had the best seasons of their careers in Tocchet’s second season behind the bench. J.T. Miller, Quinn Hughes and Brock Boeser all reached new career highs in both goals and points. Hughes won the Norris Trophy, Boeser became a 40-goal scorer for the first time, and Miller finished among the league’s highest-scoring forwards.
Some of the success was unsustainable, such as Boeser scoring on 19.6 percent of his shots. Hughes, however, has since established himself as one of, if not the best, defensemen in the league.
The individual results are far less consistent than the team-level trends. Some players appeared to flourish in Tocchet’s second season, while others plateaued or regressed as they spent more time in his system.
What does it mean for the Flyers?
The Flyers have already improved their defensive play under Tocchet, and history suggests that area may improve further. The most obvious question entering year two is how Tocchet’s system will continue to mesh with Philadelphia’s most creative offensive forwards, particularly Matvei Michkov. The concerns surrounding that fit have been discussed plenty already, but perhaps the more understated question is what could happen with Trevor Zegras. Keller had his breakout rookie season under Tocchet before his production dipped, while Pettersson finished Tocchet’s first partial season in Vancouver with a whopping 48 points in 36 games before taking a step back the following season. Neither case shows that Tocchet or the system was definitively to blame, but they do raise some questions about how forwards who rely heavily on skill, creativity, and offensive freedom fit long term.
Can Zegras replicate, or even build on what he did last season, or does his style of play cause him to face some of the same challenges that Keller and Pettersson experienced?
Ultimately, Tocchet’s second-year history does not provide an easy answer for what will happen in Philadelphia. His teams have generally improved, but the reasons for that improvement have varied. Some of the success has been legitimately due to individual talent thriving, while some has been because of improved team play, especially defensively. For the Flyers, year two should be less about whether Tocchet’s system can keep them competitive and more about the true ceiling of its capabilities.
All data via Natural Stat Trick
