Now coaching his fourth National Hockey League club in his career, Rick Tocchet is known for being a defensive tactician. His teams might not be the most offensively-gifted clubs, but he’s able to maximize that with a rather iron-tight blueprint that makes the neutral zone a swamp, odd-man rushes the exception, blowout losses almost nonexistent, and a lead going into the third period almost a guaranteed two points. At least that’s the goal he tries to implement in his first year. It might leave the offense almost as an afterthought, but the main thing is to keep the puck out of the net more than the opposition.
But what has the Tocchet-led teams done offensively in his second year under the helm? Are they able to score a bit more over the season? Do they stay the same? Or do they even regress a bit more in year two? We take a look at the three previous instances Tocchet led clubs in his second season with them. Note that we counted Tocchet’s 2008-09 season with Tampa as his first proper season despite only being there for 66 games, not the full 82. And we also used his 2023-24 season with Vancouver as his first proper season with the Canucks as he only coached 36 games the previous year with the club.
Tampa Bay: The first two seasons
While only coaching 66 games, and becoming the interim coach after Barry Melrose was canned early on, Tocchet’s 2008-09 season with the Lightning was a trial by fire. The team scored only 207 goals over 82 games, which was 27 below the league average. Over 50 per cent of the goals were accumulated by four players: Martin St. Louis (30), Vincent Lecavalier (29), Ryan Malone (26), and Steven Stamkos (23). Only two other players had 10 or more goals: Vaclav Prospal had 19 and Mark Recchi with 13. A whack of skaters scored 1 to 4 goals while six scored between five to nine: Evgeny Artyukhin, Jussi Jokinen, Jeff Halpern, Cory Murphy, Adam Hall, and Matt Pettinger.
Continue reading…
