The Hockey PDOcast - Summer Series Part 4 With Rick Tocchet

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance and Rick Tocchet to talk about where the game is headed offensively, learning from the Panthers tactical success in the playoffs, how much you can control as a coach, using the offseason to revisit what worked and what didn't from the previous year, and building relationships with stars and developing young players. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDOCast. My name's Dimitri Filipovich and joining me as always, my good buddy, Thomas Trans. Tom, what's going on in? Not much, man. It's been a highlight of my summer to get to do these shows with you. We've had three really interesting conversations sort of documenting how a player agent, a player, an NHL general manager, thinking about how the game is changing. We promised you we'd bring in a head coach. We've got Rick Chalket head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers joining us. I'm thrilled. This is going to be a ton of fun.

Rick, how are you doing? Doing pretty good. You know, trying to get, you know, your life in order when you make a move to a different team. But, you know, it's good. We had a great time at the draft, you know, with, I brought my coaches down. We had our meetings there and then obviously meeting certain people, the flyers that you haven't seen.

And then some old friends, you know, seeing Bobby Clark and Billy Barber around. I haven't seen those guys in a while. So it was a great time. So Rick, I want to go through the timeline with you and kind of where we're at right now as we're recording on, what is it, July 16th, so it's 18th now. It's flying, how much fun we're having this week.

So, you know, you make the decision officially to leave the Canucks on April 29th. You get hired by the Flyers on May 14th. It's been two months since now. I'm curious kind of how much chance you've had in terms of doing some homework and kind of like the legwork off the ice before you get onto it with the flyers.

in familiarizing yourself with the spot you're stepping into, both in terms of how the Flyers played last season, maybe what worked for them and what didn't, and then the personnel you're taking over and kind of formulating a plan for what your vision is going to be once you get on today's, for what you're going to want the Flyers to look like and play like next season.

Yeah, great question. I think first of all, you know, when you meet with, you know, when I met with the Flyers, you know, obviously Danny Breyer and Keith Jones, Dan Hilfrey, the main guy, the president, you know, the game plan. What's, what, you know, where do they see their, their team this year, the next few years?

And you go through that, which we did, we did have a lot of means about that. And then when I took the job, then it's about, you know, putting your staff together, you know, what's the chemistry like, you know, like I wanted a couple of teachers on my staff. I wanted a veteran guy, what you got in Todd Reardon, who's, you know, his track record, if you look at a, of some of the D that he's coached, I talked a couple of the, that he had coach. I got, even a guy like Tom Wilson,

I reached out to, who gave rave reviews about them. So you do your legwork on your coaches stuff. And then, then when you, you know, when you got that done, you start,

you focus on the players, you know, all this coaches have talked to players. I had a Zoom call with the whole team the other day, getting everybody on the same. It was more of a messaging, Zoom call.

What's the messaging? You know, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a long call, but is, you know, where,

you know, where do we see our team going? You know, what's my style? What, you know, what do I want, do I expect for them? What do they expect from us? You know, we're there to service to them. So there's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of time still, but I think you're still going to knock these, these, you know, these different topics.

And you want to make sure that you're prepared. So, you know, we'll have one more, one more coaches meeting in August, the middle of August, then we'll be ready to go after Labor Day. Rick, we're going to take this conversation in a lot of different sort of direction. but I wanted to start with sort of one thing we saw this year or this summer in terms of some of the player movement or lack thereof, right? Is, you know, the Florida Panthers, for example, were able to keep three guys together in a way that in the flat cap era almost certainly wouldn't have been possible, right? They would have had to make some tougher decisions in terms of losing a top pair RD, a second line center, or, you know, a game break. King veteran winger.

Keeping all three guys, that feels new and a product of sort of this cap growth era we're entering. I still remember the like early winter of 2020 after a coyote's game against the Capitals. You talked about that Capitals power play as being the product of, you know, chemistry, familiarity, right? How long a runway that group had had together and sort of the things that it opened up as a result, if we're going to see teams stay together, are we going to see a level of chemistry, right?

That, you know, maybe used to be more present in, like, the late 90s and that we sort of haven't seen as much during the flat gap, Aaron, does that impact how a head coach will sort of have to game plan for opponents, but also work with their own players? Yeah, that's a great point. I think, you know, back, even when I play the 80s and 90s, the really successful teams that had great chemistry

we were a lot of the nucleus hung around together a lot you know you got three four five years six years together it wasn't two or three and then done if you look at Florida obviously Bill Zito has done a hell of a job you know

you know it's funny I listen to the parade I listen to the guys and then you hear Bennett say we could do whatever the hell we want You know, he said it better than I said it, but the way he said it, he's right. They could do whatever they want because they have the same nucleus of guys coming back again. They know, everybody knows what to do.

They know what it is to be a Florida Panther. There's not a lot of turnover. So, you know, with the cap air, it's a slippery slope because you're like, okay, do we run it back. Sometimes you run it back, but it's, you know, maybe the guys are too old. or it doesn't work out. It seems like to me Florida has the magic. They know what they're doing. Bringing those guys back is huge.

And, you know, they're looking to repeat again. I mean, and that's the benchmark. I want to talk to you, Rick, about this paradigm shift that we're seeing in NHL in terms of the on-ice style of play and kind of where we're seeing the league headed. Tom and I have spoken about this a bunch. I'm sure this is something that you've been thinking about as well. And you could see it even in terms of the way the Canucks were operating

offensively the past couple of years. this idea that everyone is becoming as they're trying to optimize and get more efficient offensively, we're seeing a more sort of deliberate or calculated approach in terms of thoughtfulness with shot selection, not just necessarily firing bucks from everywhere, trying to inflate your coursey and just get a high shot total, and then wondering why the goalie had a huge safe percentage and you got goalied on that given night. And I've got the numbers here, like 21, 22 season. The average is 31.3 shots on goal per game. Then next year it went down to 30.9, then 30, 28.

And this postseason, it really hit its apex or it's an eight year, depending on your perspective on it. 26.4 shots on goal per game. So we're seeing that go down. I think part of it is with the increase in sports betting and shot props and all that stuff, the league has changed their definitions of how they're tracking some of this stuff and they're being more careful with that. But certainly it makes sense the teams are just trying to weed out some of those low percentage shots and really be thoughtful about where they're getting the puck to into the

lot, high danger areas, shots off of passes and all that good stuff. How does that kind of, how do you incorporate that in working with the team in terms of the messaging there, whether that's something you can really be more thoughtful about or whether it's something that's just going to kind of come naturally as all these guys have all these advancements and skills training and everyone is just so much more talented than they ever were really entering the league? It's probably one of my favorite topics to talk about, Dimitri. I think this is something that I love the round table with other coaches talk about this.

I have a good group of guys, you know, NHL, because I talk about this stuff where, you know, you want to be thoughtful the way, like I don't feel just throwing a puck on net is always the right thing to do. Now, here's my theory. The goal is so good. And a lot of the teams want your goal to play half a net. So if you're just throwing a lot of pucks and if your coverage is right,

the goalies are going to stop both of them. But I feel if you can hold pucks a little bit long, longer. Can you use the weak side? There's a lot of weak side goals in the playoffs. If you look at a lot of stuff we're getting to the weak side, there was a lot of stuff getting deflected from the weak side because I felt that guys were more calculated with their shots. But there's got to be, there's got to be the sweet spot there because obviously I wasn't happy with their team last when I was in Vancouver. I mean, we were one of the lowest side teams. You know, and that's for another topic why I don't preach that you know that low but I think there's there's a there's a

time and place to hold on to a peg when to throw it but for me it's the goalies you know you you know just throwing a puck on net you know you want the goalie to play post to post and how do you do a lot of weak side stuff you you you know do you use the other side of the net you know do you activate the defenseman on the weak side a lot and and it's get the puck to that side. I mean, there's little things like that that, you know, I'm even an experiment more with the flyers this year because, you know, you look what you can do as a coach better. But yeah, if not necessarily high volume teams usually win. It's, uh, I'm not saying you can't. I just think you got to really look at being real, like you use more thoughtful on what you want

to do with a puck and instead of just throwing a puck when nobody's in front and you're, you're outside the shooting area and you're just thrown at the net and nobody's there. Well, you're just giving up possession, you give the other team of the puck. What's sort of incredible about this drop in shot volume is that you're also getting a spike in shooting efficiency, right? And you're getting a drop and save percentage. So even though teams are shooting less, goaltenders are having a tougher time, I think, you know, whether it's how players are, you know, using layered traffic, how teams are making life difficult on goaltenders.

I think how players are attacking goaltenders in like their transitions, right? I think they're more thoughtful as shooters in terms of, of how they're scoring and manufacturing goals in a world where shooting percentage is 90 or sorry, 10% instead of 8% the way it was, you know, 10 years ago, Rick. And it's so much harder to hold leads and it's so much more, you know, difficult, I think, to win with defense specifically. And more than that, the elite players have a greater impact on sort of the outcomes of games here, in part because they're four or three games, they're not two one games, even at the toughest time of year.

What does that, does that necessitate any sort of change in emphasis from a coach or from a teaching perspective in working with NHLers? Absolutely. You know, you made the comment about the layered offense over the, I think the last three or four years, that has really increased. You know, a couple of years ago, being in Vancouver, I think we were one of the top teams at, of tip goals. You know, and there's got to be luck.

There's got to be luck. I mean, we were lucky. But there was offense to our game where our point men were a little more thoughtful and said it. Like, I remember when I played, even five, ten years ago, D were just blasting it with just, they just wanted to shoot as hard as they can. They actually tried to beat the goalie from the blue line. you're not going to score from the blue line, usually unscreened and top shelf on a goal.

I mean, it's no chance most of the time. But if you watch D now, they're shooting for sticks. Now, you look at Florida. You know, you got some of the best goals scores. You know, some of the grittier, like the Kachucks and Bennett and Rhinard. If you watch them around the net, they're shooting for those guys sticks. You know, the, you know, the Panthers are shooting weak side. They'll see a guy on the weak side.

Instead of just ripping a puck on the, the goalie with a with a goalie that can see in the puck. So that kind of offense is something really intriguing to me. You know, like I said, we were successful two years ago. And I think there's better ways to do it. And, you know, we're still studying it now. But there's definitely offense in that layered. And it's actually, you know, I don't want to bore you guys.

But I know you guys love it is where if you look at Toronto over the years, I like the way they, where their F3 will go downhill. and then actually the neft front guy will replace F3 so they almost switch and now you get coverages like who's got who you play a team this man on man that's a tough coverage like switch how do you switch that on man on man

so those are the sort of things I'm going to dive into and just you know and use analytics too to help your points I assure you Rick you're not boring us that's right up our alley this is the right program I know you guys love that stuff because we're all you know, we're all trying to like, you know, figure, hey, how do you get better, right? And this is fascinating to me because, you know, I'm learning every year.

So I want to ask you this, as you switch organizations and looking at the way the Canucks operated offensively the past two years, in particular, off the rush. You guys were at 5.3 rush chances per game last year, which was 32nd, the year before 4.9. Now, two years ago, you guys, you called some of that good fortune. Some of that was just, I think you guys were coming out of the gate really hot, building early leads. And then we see in the NHL how it's played, like teams, when they're down, start pushing more for offense, create maybe openings or get less structured. And then you can counter and you can punish them that way. And that's what the Canucks did really well two years ago. You're stepping into a situation in Philly where one thing the Flyers did really well the past two years was attacking off the rush. That was the majority of their offense. They were tied with the abs, I think, for second last year at 7.4 rush chances per game.

How do you kind of envision, I don't want to say those two competing philosophies, because I think, Obviously, everyone would agree if you can get more rush opportunities. That's the most likely way you're going to score and you're going to try to get that. How much of that is personnel driven? How much of that is playing within the confines with the guys you have and then trying to get the most out of them? Because that is a pretty big gap between what we've seen from those two organizations the past couple years. Right. And that's a great point.

But you got to remember they were one of the worst at possession time. So where's that sweet spot, right? It's one of the top rush teams, but possession one of the worst. So we've got to try to find that balance. you know, like, you know, I think it's important. Anytime, like, when you defend the puck or any time off a for check and you're breaking a puck out or you win a battle, that's the transition game. You got the team in a vulnerable position when you beat their forecheck. Now, all of a sudden, you should have an odd man rush.

Now, the other team can reload fast and all of a sudden that dissipates that you don't have them. But a lot of it is personnel. I mean, let's face it. You miss the net on an Edmonton Oiler team. They're dumb. They have a three on two. So if you're talking about shot selection, when you play Edmonton, you better hit the net. If you miss the net, you know, you know McDavid's taken off and it's on the way.

That used to drive me nuts because they said to guys, you better hit the net because, you know, they're starting to break out. So it's a good one for me because I don't want to take that away from this team because they are a good rush team. And I want to continue to that. now it's like how do we become a better possession team so you know we got to try to mirror that I'm not quite sure you know if you're the best rush team and the worst possession team or vice versa which is better I don't know is it better just being meter oaker on both both areas I don't know but I do know one thing you have to have a quick counter strike team if you want to win you there's got to be you got to you got to be able to you know score off the rush if you want to win

I mean, let's face it, we've been in games where I remember in the past, team would be all over us. We would get a three on two. We'd score all of us. That's a two-goal swing. Where, you know, you're, where like teams like Edmonton or Colorado, they don't need a lot of odd man rushes to, where some teams they might need, you know, they might score every odd man rough, you know, one at every six where they might score one

every three. So there's a lot of information there. But I think it's important. It's important that you have to become a good rush team and you have to have to have that mentality to be aggressive when there is a turnover or when you do break out the puck. So Rick, just want to walk you through this and then get you to annotate it. And then we'll sort of go to break because I'm sort of thinking about where we've got to specifically with what Paul Maurice and what Rod Brindamore are doing in the East. sort of the amount of stress hockey that's working and sort of dominating in the East. And to me, I sort of view it as, you know, 10 years ago, roughly, we had sort of the tail end of that like Kings Blackhawks era of dominance, which was more of a possession-based game.

And I kind of think your staff with Mike Sullivan, although Lavillette and the Nashville Predators played a similar style, sort of, with a lot more like what I'd call punt and hunt, a lot more sort of breakouts where you weren't connecting play from the back end out. And that created sort of a speed element, maybe a little bit more of a rush attacking thing. And in that 2017 final, the two teams that were really playing that way met. And I felt like that sort of opened the door for where we've come to

with sort of the way that Florida has dominated the last three years, you know, really being a four check based. attack attacking game being sort of the natural outgrowth of sort of that evolution over a decade. Do you think that's a fair sort of way of captioning it and looking at it? And sort of what was the genesis of how Sullivan and that staff that you were on in Pittsburgh approached that? Was it simply a personnel? Like we have an overloaded group of forwards and we're patching it together on D or was there a different sort of impetus behind it in terms of wanting to play fast? Yeah, it's a great point again.

Well, when we lost Crystal Chang, and if you look at our defense, you know, there wasn't a lot of, you know, it wasn't like we had all stars back there, but they were very capable of the Dumilins. We got Ron Hainzi. You know, we got guys like that where Olimada. So what happened was we felt when a team like Washington, who that one year, they could have won the cup that one year, very heavy forechecking. team a team that could hold pucks you know ovechkin osi baxter um shi baxter well so they had a lot of guys so we felt if we could beat them uh we could get to the puck quick and we had to punt it or we used to call it space plays and uh florida does this where you you space play it and you out you outnumber their you know it's almost like a guy going for a fair catch and you got two guys

coming at them if you ever watch florida when they they throw in the air they got two for just going right at that guy and the puck bounces and all of a sudden they get possession now they are there on the attack there is there is a game plan to that now i'm not saying you got to punt it every time but we play a high stress high volume shot team if you can get that puck out quickly into an area with some numbers good things happen and i think um that's why you say paul maurice team i mean listen let's face it they when their player gets that puck if it's a ryanhart or a baron Markoff or Kachuk or Rodriguez, they can make a play out of it. A lot of teams don't have those type of players where that next play,

it's hard for them to make. Well, those guys are going to hold on to it. They're going to draw two guys to them, and they're going to make that other play. So there is something to that theory, but they also have good players to make that second play. So I think a lot of teams are going to this. A lot of teams are going to go to more of the punt style and track a puck and then go from there 100%.

All right, Rick, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we're going to jump right back into it and keep chatting with you about a variety of other topics. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the Hockey-Ocast run by Thomas Drans and our pal, Rick, talk it. We finally got a coach on for our people on the game week. And we're nerding out, as you'd expect with Rick here. Tom, you got the next question. Yeah, let's start specific because we're going to be streaming here in the Toronto market as well. And the Maple Leafs just acquired a player from the Vancouver Canucks, who you're very familiar with.

Rick, so let's get for our Toronto-based listeners. What are the Maple Leafs getting in Dakota, Joshua? Yeah, I think you're going to get a motivated guy. Obviously, that year, last year didn't go well for Dakota for a lot of reasons. Behind the eight ball, obviously, with the cancer. Had some issues with his hips. And he just couldn't get on track, you know. And mentally, too, you know, I really love Dak.

You know, I've got to know him really well, the two and a half years being in Vancouver. I really appreciate him to coach him. He's a pleasure to coach, but I felt the mental part of the game got to him last year because he just felt he couldn't do what he wanted to do it and wear it down on. Obviously, affected his play.

I think with a great summer training, I think him being healthy, you talk about a guy that's going to hold on to Poxa, that around the net has really good hands that can fit the system and chief system, that layered system that they do where he can grab some pucks around that area. And then also, you know,

he was a top five penalty killer, you know, over the years I've been there. He's, you know, last minute of a game, especially my first couple years as you know, he was out there the last minute of the game when you had protected a lead. And then he had that really good,

you know, three months stretch as a third, you know, I think that's one of the reasons why we were successful as our third line was excellent that year. And he was a main reason. I think it's a great trade for Toronto. Hopefully, Dad can find his game because if he's on his game, that's a hell of a piece for Toronto. Rick, we sort of ended segment one talking about the Florida Panthers,

and I do want to come back to the stress hockey that they play, especially because for longtime listeners of this program and especially people who listened to us talk during the Stanley Cup final, we really did view, or I really did view, the way that the Panthers play, as effectively a dare to their opponents, where if you make what is usually the safe play against the Florida Panthers with the way that they're,

you know, going to regroup with speed and make those space plays in coming back at you, usually with a hard rim, right? And then two guys, reloading that defender on the weak side. If you make that one or two times, just sort of try and move the battle into the neutral zone, you're pretty much dead in the water with how,

they attack. And if you are willing to make the unsafe play, right, which also provides its own level of danger, you can get behind them, right? You can sort of, to put it in football terms, beat the blitz that they're sending with that super aggressive forecheck. When you sort of think about countering that or sort of what's next in terms of finding that answer, right? the continuum that hockey always exists on. How do you view sort of the X's and O side of handling that stress hockey going forward? Yeah, so you made a great point. They hard rim it to two guys every time. They basically tell you we're going to do it.

And here's the key, because a lot of teams do the same thing, but the key is once there's a battle, they'll either reset it or they'll come up the strong side, that guy who gets the puck, and I see this all the time, whether it's a Barkoff or it doesn't matter who it is, Bennett, Listerina, it can be Lundell.

Once they get it off that, you know, that overload, it goes, they don't throw the puck away again. That guy will hold it. And this is where they're not scared to not make a, they don't care,

like they'll hold it. The other team tries to come out of their coverage at it. They'll try to beat the guy. They'll make a play to the slot. they'll actually try to dance the guy on one-on-one, they'll try to beat the guy. That's what I like. It's not like the guy gets it

and then he throws it away again. Usually they hold on the puck. And that's the key. That's the key to their system is the second guy that gets the puck off any kind of spray or any kind of rim. He's willing to make a play. And it might be risky sometimes,

but Paul Maurice is willing to take that risk with his team. And I think that's why they're so successful. Now on the other side, to counteract against that, if you can win that battle and you're, and you can you make that one play to beat that, you know, I mean,

I did that TNT game. I was, I was the guest coach there. I think it was early in the, in the playoffs where Toronto burnt Florida. They over, were over aggressive. Their F3 got in a little too tight.

And Toronto made a play up the middle, threw a couple sticks to Newlander, and they were gone and they scored. That's the stuff you're talking about. about are you willing to do that through that style? And that was that was that was effective against for on early in the series. So that's the stuff I like looking at. You know, can you make that play in a high stressed area where the risk reward is tremendous?

So you've been on both sides of the bench, obviously, as a player and now a coach, and I'm really curious for your take on this. How much do you feel as a coach now that you can actually control from behind the bench in games? You know, for a lack of a better term, like almost micromanaging. stuff deliberately because you can obviously control stuff like ice time matchups zone deployment the system you're coaching up what you want the guys to do tactically but at the end of the day regardless of the prep or your intentions heading in whether your job is deemed successful or not is going to come down to how well the players on the ice execute that and i think that panthers example is a

great one where i imagine every team that played them along the way was watching the tape and they're like all right every time in the zone they're going to hard rim it or send it cross ice they're going to get two guys there first and we're going to have to make a play under pressure and get it out of the zone or diffuse that situation. And they just kept doing it time and time again. You know it's coming and you still fumble the puck amongst that pressure. And so clearly those teams weren't underprepared for it. They just weren't able to execute within it.

As a coach, like kind of how do you view that sort of power or control over some of this stuff? Because I think listeners watching these games are constantly thinking hockey so random or chaotic. The puck's bouncing around. All these crazy things are happening. and something I always push back on is I do feel like there's certain elements where you really can hold in on it, but obviously there's some stuff where it's just going to come down to how the puck bounces or what you do amidst all that pressure. Yeah, I think going into a game, and you can ask any of these coaches, you know, you have certain matchups on the ice that you can't have.

Like you got a Connor McDavid or you got Barcoff or you got, you know, Thor's best line. You know, if you got your low-footed six defensemen out there, too many times, you're going to get burnt. So that's the first thing is matchups. Like I think there's a certain part of coaching. You have to have matchups and you've got to really dial into it. But you've got to be careful. You don't be an overmatch coach where you take the flow out of the game for some of your players.

So that's the hard part I find going into a game is like, okay, I can't let this matchup happen. We're going to get burnt if it happens too many. I can get lucky every once while I get away with it. But how do I let the game go? the team's playing well where, you know, I'm not pulling guys in and off because I got to get the proper matchup. That's the hard part about coaching for me. And you've got to find it, you know.

And I think the obvious ones we know, you know, McDavid's on the ice, you just, I mean, I hate to say there's certain players, just you can't have them on the ice very, you know, on the ice very, because, you know, you'll get burnt. Saying that, I think it's important that you can't be afraid to let, you know, you can't let, a couple of matchups go, let it go.

And hopefully the better player of that night will win the battle. And you got to have the, I guess use the balls as a coach and let it happen. And put the onus on that player to win that matchup. You know, you can't help out everybody. Like, I mean, my job or the head coach job is to point out the other team's weakness. How can I get my best strength against their weakness? And sometimes it doesn't happen where it's an even. still made and you got to let it just happen and there's not much you can do but there are times

when you can get the right guy out there and and find that weakness against a team um you know like there's you know you watch florida during the blast there's some times there i'm i'm you know i'm sitting on the silence like coach i'm like oh sure here we go this is a bad matchup and you know see florida'll have the puck for 50 seconds and then all of a sudden they score there's a shot on the point there's a deflection it's like you know you knew it was coming so um that's the hard part of of coaching is how much you can control it. Rick, you had an opportunity to work on Cooper's staff with Cassidy DeBore at the Four Nations and just working with an absolutely stacked team Canada roster.

I assume things will be kept the same given the success that you guys had for the Olympics. But what did you learn as a head coach getting an opportunity to work with, you know, a team where the decisions are, you know, should we play Mitch Mark? on the third line. Should this hundred point forward be on the third line tonight, or should we move them? Like, what, what did you learn from having a chance to, you know, coach up and work with, just a, just a star-studded lineup like that? Yeah. So for me, I was a little intimidated, you know, and I'm usually not an intimidated guy. I got pretty confident myself, but I remember the first couple days, I kind of just kind of, you know, just kept my mouth shut and kind of just observe.

You know what I learned? Those guys Those guys want to be coached. Honor McDavid wants to be coached. Sidney Crosby wants to be coached. I mean, you know, you can't feel intimidated around them. I mean, I remember about my fourth day, like, you know, we actually did the Dallas D-Zone coverage where we, the wearer will crack down on the strong side.

And, you know, Dallas does that. I don't do that. And Bush doesn't. Coup does a little bit. So it was my job. teach that and Sid would come up to me and go, hey, talk. So how do we, so he was actually asking me about it. So I have to have the answers for him.

So I got to be ready for that stuff. So I felt I learned a lot not, you know, to make sure that I'm coaching. And it's okay to be wrong or it's okay to get, you know, I might say something. And they're like, well, talk, shouldn't we should be this way? And I'm like, oh, man, you're right. It should be that way. So you can't be afraid to be vulnerable, but you also got, you can't be intimidated because these guys want the answers.

want to be coached. That's the one thing with these high level guys. It's not like, I remember back in these some of these superstar guys, they were like, leave me alone. I got it. Not these guys. They want, they want to be taught. And I thought that that was something that really enlightened me when I was in the Four Nations. So this particular offseason for you, maybe it doesn't apply as much because you're in the process of switching organizations and kind of acclimating yourself and getting a feel for everything going on as we talked about off the top. But I'm always fascinated how coaches utilize the off season to kind of get back to the drawing board, reflect, just try to find and kind of fine tune everything or streamline the process, I guess, by scrapping out maybe what didn't work

the previous season, finding better ways to enable what did work. And this is going to be, I promise it'll be, it'll make sense at the end. It's going to be a bit of a winding. Rick knows me well enough to expect something involving the NFL at some point. Okay, there you go. So Thomas and I talk about this all the time. I think the world of Sean McVeigh, the coach of the Rams, in terms of a lot of his play design. and concepts and what he's done for offensive football in the NFL. One of our frustrations, though,

is in season, I feel like sometimes he can kind of get blinders or maybe he get bogged down by like the game transpiring in front of them, especially with regards to usage for some of his personnel. And I think that's perfectly normal, right? The job of head coach is so intensive.

Like being in the heat of the battle of the game, a season, it's so long, you're just you're dialed in on it, right? And you come hyper-fessional. fixated on things. The benefit of the offseason is you get a chance to kind of take a bit of a step back with the benefit of that distance. You can kind of recalibrate a little bit and maybe see some of the stuff with clear our eyes. And the example that we have here is a guy like T-2 Atwell, for example, an undersized receiver for the Rams. Every time you watch him play last year, he's always open. He's making stuff happen when he gets the opportunities, but then you look at a snapout at the end of the

game, and it's pretty low. And then Sean McVeigh comes out this off season. He talks about, I've had a chance to go back, go through the tape from last season. That was a mistake on my part. I need to play them more. We just gave a new contract. And so we'll see what happens with that. But I love that idea of kind of there's the in-season coaching and then the off-season and trying to learn from it and get better with the craft.

How are you sort of viewing that stuff as you go along this journey and kind of what you can get out of the off season and really fine-tuning some of these things on the margins? Well, first of all, I thought you're going to talk about the Ravens are going to probably won the Super Bowl this year. So put your money on the ratings. So that's, this segues into how does Jim Harbaugh,

how does he get Lamar not to make so many mistakes in the first half of every playoff game when they have to come back? That's the one thing I think he's going to have to reflect off this summer. But yeah, it's a great, it's a great thing where you can actually reflect on what you felt was the right thing to do. And then in the,

son are thinking, hey, man, I made a mistake. I think that's really big as a head coach. Like, I'll be honestly, I can be really up front with you guys. That going into last year, I really wanted to be a big transition and really, you know, be a good rush team. And I think it kind of hurt us early because we weren't really built early on that way. And I think we, I forced everybody's hand. So do I have a different approach in training camp? Yes, I will have a different training camp.

camp that I did last year in Vancouver, I think I made a little bit of a mistake. So I think it's important as a coach to be able to recognize those, like, as McVeigh, you know, I feel I can get more snaps for them, you know, but also knowing that, hey, like, it did work. So make sure it's not, you know, you don't overload the guy either. So I think it's important that you find that sweet spot. So, but that's an interesting question because, you know, you always, you always reflect as a coach in the summers, like, what could have done different? And that was one thing I, I think I could have helped the team better is maybe a little different at training camp, maybe a little bit harder training camp last year. You know, I've reflected on that and maybe that will make some decisions

for me this year, be a little bit different. Rick, do you mind if we just sort of picket that a little bit because obviously I was there in Penticton, so I was watching you try to install those anchoring breakouts, right, the landmarks as you were referring to them. We tend to call it the anchor play. And, you know, I do think, like, you know, objective observer here who trends negative in the Vancouver market anyway,

like I do think that if that team anyway was going to add to their ceiling and not just be like a tough out in the playoffs, but be the sort of team that could dictate in the toughest time of year, you did need to level up in transition, right? Like, it seems to me anyway that sort of prioritizing that transitional work or that sort of rush attacking would have added to that team ceiling if it had worked. Was it one of those things where even if the tactics were right, it wasn't the right fit for that group?

Like when you think about sort of why it was an error, Do you look back on it and say it was a tactical error on my part? Or was it a man management error on your part? Yeah, great question because it's a delicate, because the responsibility squarely on me. So I have to take the responsibility, accountability for that. But saying that, I still think, and the way I've always taught, you teach, you coach your personnel, you know, a coach doesn't, like,

even an error of all coach, he doesn't go on and here's my system. I mean, he's got to look what he has. And then, you know, you know, like, you know, whatever. Like, you look at Baltimore over the years. Like, I know, I'm a big Raven fan. You know, they didn't have a lot of great receivers, and they ran the ball a lot. And that's what they did.

I mean, they didn't have the great receivers. I mean, they didn't have the feature. They had bold in there. And I think they didn't have much there for a lot of years. So saying myself last year, you know, we had some injuries on the back end. We were a little bit bigger. We got Dean Arnie. we had some guys that maybe weren't the greatest rush guys.

And I think I tried to force it a little bit instead of just letting it be who we are for a while until we got healthier until a couple of guys got their games going. I think that was important. So, yeah, technically, yeah. I made an error tactically. I think I forced it a little bit.

And I should have been stuck to my gun, say, hey, this is who we are. You know, we were successful in the last year somewhat. I mean, let's face it, you know, even though we went to game seven and we had the four-minute power play at Edmonton and that could have been different if we scored. But, you know, they were the better team in the series. Could we have added a little bit more transitional game to beat them? Yeah. And that was my thought process.

But how much did I give too much rope? Probably did for the personnel we had. because, you know, I do like big defense and I like, you know, I love that long reach and all that stuff, but can you have both where can, you know, can these guys get up in the player? Can they make that, can they make that next play? You know, through through through the stick, Lala, the Toronto to to kneelander up the middle and then they got a, you know, they got a three on one or a three on two. You know, I felt that, I try, I force that hand, I guess. So I have to take responsibility for that. Rick, you've had the opportunity over the years, whether it was, you know, working with Sydney Crosby or Quinn Hughes and your experience at the Four Nations to work with some of the best players in the game. And if we're moving to this, you know, lower, say, percentage, higher shooting percentage world where Connor McDavid can have the sort of Stanley Cup playoff run that looks more like what we'd expect from an NBA player at the peak of their powers, right? sort of just absolutely dominating in a way that we didn't regularly see during the aughts, right, during that sort of the teens, 2010 through 2019, let's say. Does that change the importance for a head coach of having a different type of relationship,

more like a partnership with the star players in an organization? A million percent. You're not going to survive if you don't have a partnership with a player. I can give you I mean I have relationships over the years over different players Cindy Crosby obviously have a great relationship with them we have a different relationship than say a Quinn Hughes

similar by both partnership like you know Quinn Hughes unbelievable guy to coach but there were certain things that you know we wasn't arguments a little bit of philosophy thing where he would try to make a play didn't matter who was on the ice like if he was out with his fourth line

he would try to make high-risk plays. And I would say to him, listen, I can compromise. Like, I love Hughes, and I want him to do his thing. Because, I mean, won the Norris. He had an unbelievable, you know, for 50 games, he was probably the best defenseman league last year. Yeah. So this is my theory.

You know, your fourth wines out there. Or I'm a player that's, you know, not a high, high offensive guy, but I have the puck. I could shoot the puck on that, throw the puck, you know, get a half decent shot on that. Or can I hold it knowing that, can I, get that puck to Quinn Hughes somehow? Because the odds are going to go up if that guy touches the puck. It's the same thing, the Barcoffs and the, in the, in the, in the, uh, McDavid's and dry settle.

So that's where my theory comes into play, even if you're an average player, you know, can you, you know, instead of just throwing pucks away, can you hold it and get that puck to that high danger guy, you know, that's really, that's why these teams that have, you know, these great all-star players on their team, you know, a Jack Eichael, for instance, you know, if you're playing, with Jack Eichel, and he has his success, he's playing with Stone. You watch a guy like Stone, very rarely Stone will throw Pucks away. You know, he's one of the better guys at holding Puck because he's looking to give to Eichl because he knows if he gives it to Eichl, Eichl's going to make a play, whether it's

a better shot or it's going to be a play to somebody else. That's why these superstar guys, if you can have that language with them and make them understand, hey, we're trying to get you the puck in these situations. You're going to get plus buy-in, plus you're going to get a partnership with them because they're going to buy into what you're going to buy into what you're selling. How do you, as you look ahead to year one with Philly and, you know, working with a guy like Mitch Cove and it's not necessarily that young of a roster at the moment, although I think they've had like 12 draft picks in the top two rounds over the past couple drafts and still have more along

the way as they transition and rebuild into this new era of Flyers hockey, how do you sort of balance the seesaw of developing some of these young players and giving them that sort of runway to see what their potential is ultimately, while also knowing that as a coach, you know, we've seen the shelf wife and turn over at that position is still pretty low and you're going to be judged based on wins and losses for the most part. And if they're making mistakes, sometimes it's like, all right, like, do I see this all the way through or do I go to a reliable, right, trust a veteran player? How do you sort of balance that risk reward or just a seesaw for, as I described it, in terms of using the young players, but also acknowledging that they're going to make mistakes

along the way and it might be for the betterment, but you also do want to build better habits and make sure that they're ironing that stuff out along the way. Yeah, you always want better habits. You always want to preach playing the right way. We all say the same thing, but I got to be crazy not to let these guys, you know, they got to try stuff. You know, we got to maximize their talent. You know, we're in a, you know, the one thing I took the job, Danny and Jonesy sold to me is that, you know, they want to transition to, you know, what is a flyer? the identity. You know, if you look at the draft, we dropped a lot of big guys.

I was at the development camp. I mean, they got a lot of big defensemen there. Long, you know, this Gil kid, I think he's 18 or 19. I was watching him out there. Pretty good skater, good boots. What range are I'm thinking like, oh, my God, this guy in two, three years, he could be a hell of a defenseman. They have a lot of those guys.

So I got to be able to, not just myself, the development guys. each department has to the the medical guys the strength guys we all got to preach the same thing and i think it's important that that we want to we want to maximize that and you know i don't want these guys just to play a safe you know you're a 21 year old mitchkoff like you know this guy doesn't want to dump the puck in every time he hasn't and he wants to make a play you know it's my job to make him understand when to be calculated to do do what you want and what the team wants That's going to be where I'm going to earn my money is, you know, I got to sell it to him. Hey, this isn't the right time to do what you just did.

Or if he does make a play where he feels that, you know, and it was the play to make and it gets knocked down. The other team goes on a three on two. I got to live with that. And the team's got to live with that. You know, we can't, you know, smack the guy's hand because he tried to make a high-end play. That's the way he thinks. He's just got, we just got to be more calculated in the way, you know, we want to approach

the game. also we have some young players coming up in the system. And what is a flyer? You know, a flyer is it, we want to hold on the puck. So, you know, obviously we want to be a tough team, but we want to be able to make a play under pressure. I mean, that's really what hockey's all about. Who makes plays under pressure?

You know, you might, everything goes great. You got the puck. And if you can make that play through two sticks onto your teammate who's going to get a hell of a chance, if you can make those plays most often, those teams get the better results. So I think that's what we got to preach. Right. It's a conveyor belt, right? As an 18 year old, as soon as you draft them, that's what we're preaching right from the start. And then you hand, you know, the developing guy hands them off to the minor

leagues and the minor leagues hands them off to the head coach. And then, but that's all the philosophy that we all agree on. When you're thinking about the challenge of working with younger players, especially higher and younger players. And we see this, you know, occasionally. I I mean, I think about a team like the Columbus Blue Jackets last year, right? And what they sort of looked like over the second half where you could begin to see the fireworks and the potential in a major way, in terms of their, you know, combination of size and speed and the way that they were attacking and some of the, you know, fire in the belly that some of their players had in big games as they found themselves in a playoff chase. But Utah is another good example of this. but also they were making a lot of mistakes and losing one goal games in critical moments.

And you contrast that, or at least I contrast that with a team like Anaheim that we watched last year where there's a lot of high-end young talent there, but they were very disciplined about playing a defensive style, you know, almost regardless of game state, right? Like there was clearly a way they wanted to play. You know, I just think about it as like, is there a, Is there a sort of a different phase that a team goes through from a head coach's perspective where first you want the young guys to have some leash to figure out like what they can do and what they can't do at the NHL level, like get up and running as NHL level players before you have to sort of play the more mature winning style of hockey that, you know,

a team like an Edmonton or a Florida would be preaching about every day next season? Yeah, another great point. And I'll tell you why. We played Tampa. There's a 2015 or 16, and they were up and coming. Tampa, they were that day, they were the Columbus, Anaheim, you know, the transition of Utah. You know, they were giddy up, giddy up and go, right?

But could they win? Right. You know, when we were in Pittsburgh, we made the right play at the right time against them, we be able. Like they learn from that. You know, John Cooper got those guys to understand that, hey, you can't make a miracle play every time. So there's a, you've got to find that sweet spot, as I always say. I keep using that word.

But those, you learn, you learn from that. You learn from those tough seven-game series, you know, what was the difference in the series, you know, is, you know, Sidney Frosby is comfortable playing a one-one game. We played perfect examples, game six against Nashville. It was zero, zero the whole game. And if you watch, and I thought Sidney Crosby had a great game, but people probably, the average player go, wow, you didn't score, he didn't do it.

Well, actually, you got assist, I think, on the winning goal with Patrick Ornquist, but he just played the game. Nashville was playing a great hockey game. They weren't given much. He wasn't pressing. He wasn't going to, you know, he kept playing the game the right way, and then all of a sudden, we encountered it, you know, we got a puck behind the net, went in the net,

a fluky goal, but we won the game. That's just over years of learning to play the right way. But also knowing that you want to play, you know, you want to play with a little bit of risk in your game. But where, you know, what's the rope you're going to give them? So that was the perfect example for me, as Pamper learned how to win. And I remember playing them in 2015.

They had a hell of a team. I just didn't think that they knew. And that was Coop trying to, you know, preach them. And obviously he did a hell of a job because that team's been a, you know, You know, you could say they're one of the dynasty teams in the last 20 years. They had a great run. So, yeah, it's a great topic because you're trying to, you want to preach your players to let it hang out and go for it. But at what cost, you know, and how do you win in those under pressure situations?

Rick, this was awesome, man. Thank you so much for taking the time. It was a blast to chop it up with you. hopefully get you on again soon. Good luck this season. Good luck with all the prep this off season as well. Tom, you got any parting shots?

No, just love the Tampa Bay reminder that you know, you either sort of die a run-in-gun hero or live long enough to become the KG veteran team playing a one-three-one in the postseason the way the Tampa Bay Lightning have over the last decade. But thanks so much for joining us, Rick. Blast chatting with you.

And best luck over the balance of your summer. prepping for season one in Philly? No, I really appreciate it. And I'll be honest, you know, not to, you know, I do a lot of interviews and you do a lot, you know, over the years. And a lot of our cookie cutter questions and answers, right? I mean, that's the world we live in. And it's nice to really talk about, you know,

whether it's strengths or weaknesses, even as myself as a coach or systems or teams, and diving into that. That's what I think is fascinating about these, whether it's a podcast or certain reporters you talk to where they really want to stretch the envelope and really pick your brain because, you know, it gets boring, right? The same old, you know, what happened tonight? You know, both.

So it's nice to be challenged as a coach. I'll be honest, yeah. It really is. This was a lot of fun. Thank you for doing it. We're going to use that as a testimonial. Send it to our bosses and then use it to the show. No, no, it's true.

No, it's true. You guys know me. I'm an honest guy. I'll tell you. There's some podcasts. There's some podcasts out there. I'll tell you, there's, I'll be honest. They stink.

So I got that. And actually, actually when I do retire, I want to be that. I want to be the podcast. The talking head. Let's their podcast. Yeah, I do. I do. I want to, like, rehash what the podcast guys talked about where, you know, or you go back

what a guy said a month ago and you bring it. Hey, didn't you say that a month ago? And now what are you talking about? I want to be that guy. So, anyway. Well, whenever that time, Tom, sir, we got a spot here open for you.

Yeah, Rick's receipts. Yes, Rick's receipts. Yeah, there you go. I love that. I'm ready for it. That's all from us for this week. Don't worry, though.

Tom and I are back on Tuesday. We got one more people in the game show coming up. We're not going to spoil who it's going to be, but let just say, if you've been listening to two of us all here, you're going to be very on brand. So I'm super excited about it. Thank you to Rick for joining us.

Thank you to the listeners. Have a great weekend. And thank you for listening to the Hockey Peeo. streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.