Rick Tocchet (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
NHL coaching free agent Rick Tocchet has become a ‘top target’ of the Boston Bruins to fill their head coach vacancy.
“If they can secure an interview with him, and yeah, they’re trying, he becomes their top target,” an NHL source close to the situation told RG on Wednesday night.
Tocchet will be reuniting with his TNT teammates this weekend, and there has been chatter that he could be making a stop in Boston before or after his trip to the TNT studio in Atlanta. On Wednesday, longtime Vancouver radio host and reporter Rick Dhaliwal hinted that the Boston Bruins are or will be pursuing Tocchet as a coaching candidate. The three-time Stanley Cup champion (one as a player and two as an assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Penguins) played for the Bruins for parts of the 1995–96 and 1996–97 seasons.
“Boston is a club. …I’ve been saying about Boston, keep an eye on the Bruins,” Dhaliwal said on his radio show with Don Taylor, ‘Donnie and Dhali’ on Wednesday.
“I will be surprised if the Bruins don’t contact Tocchet. He’s a really Boston-type guy. Cam Neely, Rick Tocchet played the same game. …power forward.”
After the Bruins traded Kevin Stevens to the Los Angeles Kings on Jan. 25, 1996, Neely and Tocchet were teammates for the last four games (Jan. 31–Feb. 21, 1996) of Neely’s career before the current Bruins team president retired as a player on Sept. 5, 1996.
It should be noted that Dhaliwal, as well as Frank Seravalli of The Daily Faceoff, both reported they had been told that Tocchet met with the Seattle Kraken. Dhaliwal also believes that the Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Anaheim Ducks, and, if they make a change, the Los Angeles Kings are also interested in the 61-year-old Tocchet.
Tocchet Drawing League-Wide Interest
The aforementioned source also believes that the Utah Mammoth and New York Islanders will go after Tocchet should they make a coaching change in the next few weeks.
“A new GM is coming for the Islanders, so obviously, a coaching change may happen there, but I’m hearing there could be some big changes with Utah, too. If so, Tocchet instantly becomes a candidate for both teams,” the source told RG.
However, the source believes the Bruins, and more specifically, Neely, really love what Tocchet could do for their team, and believe they can retool on the fly this offseason with a coach like Tocchet.
After three seasons in Vancouver, Tocchet decided to move on following a tumultuous season that saw the Canucks miss the playoffs and deal with plenty of drama surrounding centers Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller. Miller was traded, and now Tocchet has moved on from Pettersson and the Canucks.
Before being head coach for the Canucks, Tocchet was head coach of the Arizona Coyotes from 2017–18 to 2020–21. As mentioned above, he was an assistant coach for the Penguins from 2014–15 to 2016–17, head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning from early in the 2008–09 to 2009–10 seasons, after starting the 2008–09 season as an assistant, and an assistant coach for the Phoenix Coyotes (2005–06) and Colorado Avalanche (2002–04).
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James Murphy
