Coaching changes might feel normal to Travis Sanheim at this point.
Including the interim roles, the 29-year-old defenseman is set to have his seventh head coach in nine seasons with the Flyers. But he can take solace in the fact that he doesn't have to start from scratch with Rick Tocchet.
The Flyers' new head coach won a gold medal with Sanheim at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February as an assistant for Team Canada. Tocchet was on a loaded staff, led by two-time Stanley Cup champion head coach Jon Cooper. In the pre-tournament meetings, Sanheim had Canada's attention.
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SIGN UP HERE "We all talked about, 'Man, this guy can play,'" Tocchet said a little over a week ago at his introductory press conference. "And then when he made the roster, how well he played in the 4 Nations — I'm telling you, I was behind that bench and that's high-level stuff. I had the best seat in the house."
Sanheim went from being a healthy scratch in Canada's first game to playing 18:29 minutes in the gold-winning effort against Team USA, a 3-2 overtime thriller.
As Tocchet takes over the Flyers, he can work off what he saw from Sanheim.
"To see him perform with the best defensemen in the league, that's a big plus," Tocchet said. "To get a frontline defenseman like that on your team is a plus for me."
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It wasn't all that long ago when Sanheim was at a crossroads with the Flyers, trying to win over John Tortorella before enduring a rocky 2023 offseason showered in trade speculation. Tortorella saw plenty of potential in Sanheim, so he challenged and coached him in a demanding way.
Sanheim grew from it.
"Torts has done a lot for a lot of guys in this locker room, me especially," Sanheim said after Tortorella was fired with nine games left this season. "Had some hard times with him, but he made me a better player. I'm really thankful for the time that I had with him.
"I probably wouldn't be where I was this year, at the 4 Nations, without his coaching and pushing me to be a better player and a harder player to play against. So I'll always be thankful for that."
Sanheim played in all 82 games this season and logged career-high minutes. He had 30 points (eight goals, 22 assists) and just a minus-6 rating on a team that had a minus-48 goal differential. But he took a step back in the scoring department after putting up a career-high 44 points (10 goals, 34 assists) last season.
"I think it was a slow start for the first couple of weeks, then I thought my game kind of really took off leading up to the New Year," Sanheim said at his end-of-the-season press conference in April. "Then had some dips along the way. I went to 4 Nations, really happy with how things turned out there — not being in the lineup to start and then being a guy that can contribute and help the team win I think was huge for me and my game, it meant a lot to me. Down the stretch, I think it was kind of up and down, similar to how our team kind of was."
The Flyers have a critical offseason for the present and future of their rebuild. They need to add more talent, but they also believe they already have answers in the picture. Will their new head coach be the difference-maker?
"I think I can really help some of these guys," Tocchet said. "They've got some star players here in the making, and that's my job, to really maximize those guys."