Rick Tocchet is the Philadelphia Flyers’ new head coach. That’s nothing short of a homecoming for the 61-year-old, who started his NHL career with the Flyers. And as agonized as he was to leave Vancouver in free agency, the new Flyers head coach felt was proud when the Canucks named his assistant Adam Foote as their new head coach.

“He’d never had coaching experience behind the bench in the NHL, but it didn’t matter to me because I knew he was a smart guy, and I knew he was going to be head coach,” Tocchet told Sportsnet about his initial impressions of Foote. Two and a half years since giving Foote his assistant coach gig, Tocchet is confident that Foote is ready for the gig. Not just that, but Tocchet believes the Canucks also saw the quality that made Foote the perfect choice to convince their star player, like Quinn Hughes.

“Communication-wise, I think he’s a really good communicator. I see how he deals with certain personalities. There are guys that are harder to coach than others, and I’ve kind of watched from afar how he handled those guys,” Tocchet told Sportsnet about Adam Foote’s excellent people skills. “He can coach a superstar like Quinn Hughes or a Noah Juulsen, who was a depth guy in and out of the lineup. I really respected how he dealt with all types of players,” said the former Canucks head coach.

Quinn Hughes is undeniably the cornerstone of the Canucks defense, and Rutherford has no intention of losing him to free agency in two years’ time. But thankfully for him, Hughes might just end up staying, considering he has a pretty good relationship with the new head coach.

And that will be possible thanks to the relationship that Foote has developed with not just Hughes but all the players at the Canucks camp over his two-and-a-half year tenure as the assistant coach. That being said, the Canucks maintain that Foote’s hiring over, perhaps, the more likely choices like Canucks’ minor league coach Manny Malhotra, had nothing to do with Hughes. In fact, although Foote conceded that he shares a good relationship with the former Norris Trophy winner, he revealed that the team didn’t consult Hughes when hiring him as head coach.

“I just had a great talk with him this morning; we had some laughs, and we’re excited to move forward with this,” Foote revealed during his introductory press conference at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, as GM Patrick Allvin also insisted that “it’s not about one player.”Moreover, it’s not just his relationship with the players that makes him a good candidate in the eyes of Allvin, it’s also the experience he gathered over his 19 seasons as a defenseman in the NHL, studying top offensive players. And then, of course, it’s the roadmap he has set for himself.

Adam Foote plans to go pedal to the metal

While the Vancouver Canucks had a stellar 2023-24 season under Tocchet (50-23-9), the 2024-25 season was a different story. The Canucks finished their season in fifth place in the Pacific Division. The 38-30-14 season wasn’t something to write home about. Moreover, with just 236 goals, they finished 24th in the league in scoring. So, Foote is determined to turn things around for the Canucks in the upcoming season.

“We’re going to turn the page,” said the Toronto native. “I have ideas, and we’re going to get a game plan going here and move on,” added the coach. While that’s easier said than done, the head coach has months before the 2025-26 NHL season kicks off. Adam Foote hopes to utilize this time to turn the Canucks into a well-oiled machine. In the meantime, he will look to hire two assistant coaches—one focusing on defense and the other on offense—and will extend his support to Elias Pettersson, whose 15 goals this season were a far cry from the numbers the Swede is used to racking up for himself.

“We want to win hockey games. We want to be a team that can compete every night. We’re going to be hard to play against, and we want to win. That’s what we’re going to focus on and try to do every single night,” said the Canucks coach.  So it’s safe to say that Adam Foote has a lot of weight on his shoulders. Thankfully, the new Philadelphia Flyers coach has complete faith in his former assistant coach. “He’s a character guy, and he had a high hockey IQ and was willing to learn,” Tocchet told Sportsnet. Having seen Foote learn so fast in these two and a half years, Tocchet believes he can handle the challenges ahead.