VOORHEES, N.J. – It took nearly a quarter century but Rick Tocchet is finally back where he feels he belongs.
The Flyers new coach, who played for this franchise from 1984 to 1992 and again from 1999-2002, made it clear this is where he always hoped, at some point, he would wind up in his coaching career.
He won Stanley Cups as a player and an assistant coach in Pittsburgh but his heart remained with the City of Brotherly Love.
After Thursday’s opening day of training camp at the Flyers Training Center, Tocchet stated this area has a big place in his heart and indicated resurrecting the franchise would be a righteous mission.
“You know, this is a special place for me,” Tocchet said during an early afternoon media session. “The crest (Flyer logo) is big.
“Even the new guys I brought in. They haven’t been around but you can tell they know what it is to be a Flyer. We had a meeting yesterday; and you know when a new guy knows how special it is, you know it hits home.”
Tocchet touched on a variety of subjects, perhaps the most significant his thoughts on the Flyers’ ongoing “patient rebuild,” which has been endorsed by both upper management (president/CEO Dan Hilferty and president Keith Jones and general manager Daniel Briere).
“Well, every coach wants to make the playoffs,” said Tocchet, who won the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year two seasons back with Vancouver. “For me, we have so much work, I can’t even think of that.
“Wins and losses we get judged by, obviously. But there’s so much in between to win games. We have so much to do here, that’s what I worry about. I don’t worry about five games ahead. If you do that, you’re going to forget the details of the game.”
Tocchet has only had a few hours of ice time with his players but he’s already going over systems and so forth.
“I need to get these guys in concepts, what we want to do,” he explained. “We need to hold onto pucks. We want to be a better possession team. So we have to work on that stuff.
“There’s not a lot of time so you want to make sure the guys know the system by opening night (Oct. 9). It’s going to take some time. They’re going to have to get used to some of the stuff we do. You shouldn’t have to demand it out of them but if you do, I will.”
The coach said he wants to assemble a team which will be “hard to play against.”
By that, it might be a little bit of a throwback to the Broad Street Bullies days.
“It’s the Flyers, a tough team to play against,” Tocchet said. “They can play any way you want them to play. Some games you’re going to have to win 2-1, some games you have to win 6-5.
“The one thing for me that I’ll never change is playing without the puck. I don’t want to gamble. We have some creative guys. When we have the puck, go have a party. But when we don’t have the puck, I expect guys to know what they’re doing.”
Speaking of that Bullies heritage, Tocchet agreed the 1984-85 team he played for helped create this franchise’s DNA.
“I played 18 years and the eight years here (the first stint), it was probably the closest team,” Tocchet said. “It really didn’t matter who got the limelight. I’ve never seen such a selfless team.”
Tocchet sees some of that teamwork still around these days.
“No cliques,” he said. “That part I love. You play for the crest. That’s what we did back in the day. That’s what I want to instill now.”
Even on the first day of camp, Tocchet was thinking about line combinations.
He revealed he likes to use the Scotty Bowman method of keeping two guys together and rotating different players in and out for the third player on a line.
“I do like having two guys who work well together,” he said. “You can always put a third guy in. We did it in Pittsburgh and it creates energy.”
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