It's perhaps the biggest question facing the Flyers.
How much better can they get in Year 1 under Rick Tocchet? Essentially, where does the rebuild stand?
Well, the Flyers, at least publicly, aren't going to put a firm timeline on it. They haven't from Day 1 under Danny Briere. There's no reason to pin themselves into a corner by offering a prediction.
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SIGN UP HERE But the Flyers do want to get better, so how significantly? What might fans expect?
"I just think there are a lot of tools for me to work with here," Tocchet said after being introduced last Friday as the Flyers' new head coach. "Now, where are we at in the rebuild? It's hard for me to answer, I can't tell you that, I know there's a ways to go. I just feel there are some tools there to accelerate the program."
So much will depend on Briere's offseason work. The Flyers have an opportunity to be proactive and creative this summer. They have a lot of assets, which Tocchet spoke highly about as reasons for why he took the job.
But it doesn't sound like Briere will be demanding a playoff berth from Tocchet next season, even with the organization in a five-year playoff drought.
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"I am very excited, I think it's an exciting time for the whole organization — good times ahead coming up," the Flyers' general manager said. "The one thing I want to make clear is the fact that the plan doesn't change here. Rick has been part of this before, has coached some younger teams, has coached some veteran teams. We see him as the long-term solution for our head coaching position."
This season, the Flyers lost 15 of their last 21 games (6-13-2) to finish tied with the Bruins for the Eastern Conference's worst record (33-39-10). They operated like a rebuilding team down the stretch after not seeing nearly enough progress over the first five months. Briere ended up trading away five players in the span of five weeks.
"We're going to try to improve the team," the GM said of this offseason. "We probably won't be able to check all the boxes that we want to, but we're going to try to start adding some players wherever we can rather than what we've been doing the last couple of years, which is removing a lot of the players that were helping. It hurt us, there's no doubt about it that it has hurt us the last couple of years."
We'll see what Briere and Tocchet can do to accelerate things.
"I know where this is going, I like the direction, I actually love the direction that these guys have laid out," Tocchet said. "I believe in it and I want to be a part of the solution. It's not just me, it's not about Rick Tocchet; it's about everybody. But for me, I know what I've got to do to keep this ball going and there are a lot of tools here to work with — that's what has attracted me to this job."