The Philadelphia Flyers have reportedly made their final addition to their bench, hiring a familiar face to the Metropolitan Division to be Rick Tocchet’s third assistant.
Although the team has yet to make it official and there’s been no confirmation as of yet, it sounds like the Philadelphia Flyers are adding Todd Reirden to Rick Tocchet’s coaching staff for the 2025-26 season. The addition would see Tocchet’s staff featuring Reirden joining Jay Varady and Jaroslav Svejkovsky. Varady and Svejkovsky were brought on board earlier in the month.
Sounds like #Flyers have made progress on adding Todd Reirden to the bench to fill out Rick Tocchet’s new staff.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) June 19, 2025
Reirden has spent his entire NHL coaching career in the Metropolitan Division.
We’re not sure what Reirden’s role will be, although through process of elimination — Svejkovsky being in charge of the offense and the power play and Varady acting as more of a communicator and do-it-all assistant — we have to assume that the newest hire will be the Flyers’ defensive coach.
Reirden did spend time working in Pittsburgh with the Penguins defensemen and the power play. However, according to The Inquirer’s Jackie Spiegel, Svejkovsky was confirmed to be the power play coach and who we now know as Todd Reirden, would be the defensive and penalty kill coach.
Reirden is certainly no stranger to the Metropolitan Division. In 2010, Reirden became an assistant coach in Pittsburgh under head coach Dan Blysma. He was relieved of his duties on June 25, 2014, weeks after the Penguins fired Blysma. His unemployment stint was short-lived as the following day the Capitals hired him as an assistant under Barry Trotz. After being an assistant with Trotz during the Capitals’ Stanley Cup winning season in 2017-18, Reirden became the Capitals head coach after Trotz and Washington couldn’t agree on a contract extension.
Reirden had an impressive rookie season as head coach, leading the Capitals to a 104-point season in 2018-19. That was followed by a 90-point season. However, the regular season success didn’t translate into playoff success as both seasons Washington was bounced in the opening round. Reirden was fired in August 2020. However a week after that firing, he would be back with the Penguins as an assistant to head coach Mike Sullivan. That second Pittsburgh stint ended in May 2024.
The assistant coach bounced around the NHL as a player. A 12th-round pick of the Devils in 1990, Reirden spent most of his career in the minors on the blueline. He had stints with Edmonton, the Blues (where he played 56 games in 1999-2000), Atlanta (65 games in 2001-02) and Phoenix. He scored 11 goals and added 35 assists for 46 points in 183 regular season NHL games.
Again, it’s not confirmed just yet, but adding another experienced coach should hopefully help this younger Flyers roster next season and down the road. Clearly Reirden’s time with the Penguins didn’t result in developing a lot of younger defensemen as the Penguins still remain quite long in the tooth. How his style and coaching techniques will compare to previous assistant coach (and defensive guru) Brad Shaw is anyone’s guess, particularly on a back end that has a few young’uns on the roster and more on the way. But for now we can at least be happy knowing the staff has, most likely, been filled out.
