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Pat Ferschweiler Interviews For Flyers Head Coaching Job

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Western Michigan University head coach Pat Ferschweiler was interviewed by the Flyers this week for their head coaching position, ESPN’s Kevin Weekes said.

Ferschweiler, 55, is coming off a national championship and has been mentioned as a potential candidate of interest for Philly multiple times in the past few weeks. It’s the first time he’s gotten NHL head coaching buzz, but it wouldn’t be his first time coaching in the league. The Minnesota native was an assistant coach with the Red Wings under Jeff Blashill from 2015-16 through 2018-19.

The reigning NCAA Coach of the Year never made it to the NHL as a player, but he did have an eight-year professional career as a right winger and defenseman in the minors and briefly in England. He has guided the Broncos to a 104-42-10 record over the last four years, making the NCHC tournament on every occasion, after making the playoffs just once since the conference was founded in 2013.

Other candidates linked to Philly’s opening include former Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet and the recently-reinstated Joel Quenneville. It’s unclear if they’ve interviewed either, although the latter has already talked to the Ducks about their vacancy. They also haven’t ruled out the possibility of removing the interim tag from associate coach Brad Shaw.

Of course, the search comes after the Flyers fired John Tortorella with just weeks left in the regular season.

Ed Van Impe Passes Away

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Former NHL defenseman Ed Van Impe, who played in the league from 1966 to 1977, has passed away at age 84, according to a statement from the Flyers.

Undrafted, Van Impe spent six years playing minor professional hockey with the WHL-Sr.’s Calgary Stampeders and the AHL’s Buffalo Bisons before earning his first NHL contract with the Blackhawks (then the Black Hawks) at age 26. The hard-hitting 5’10”, 205-lb lefty impressed as a rookie, finishing second in Calder Trophy voting in the final season of the Original Six era with an 8-11–19 scoring line, a +29 rating, and a team-leading 111 PIMs in 61 games.

Van Impe was drafted by the Flyers in the expansion draft the following offseason, marking the beginning of where he spent the vast majority of his career. The Saskatchewan native appeared in 620 regular-season games for the Flyers over the next nine seasons, posting 19 goals, 107 assists, 126 points, and a +68 rating with 891 PIMs. He was part of the team’s back-to-back Stanley Cup wins in 1974 and 1975, posting seven points and a +18 rating in 34 games across the two championship runs.

A three-time All-Star Game participant, Van Impe spent the final season and a half of his NHL career with the cross-state rival Penguins following a 1976 trade deadline deal. He finished his NHL career with 27 goals, 126 assists, 153 points, and a +99 rating in 703 games. Even today, he’s still fourth on the Flyers’ all-time list of games played among defensemen.

All of us at PHR send our condolences to Van Impe’s friends and family and the Flyers organization.

Philadelphia Flyers Extend ECHL Affiliate

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  • According to a team announcement, the Philadelphia Flyers have extended their affiliate agreement with the ECHL’s Reading Royals. The extension will run through the 2026-27 ECHL season, and will serve as the 12th consecutive season the two organizations have held a partnership.

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Valtteri Filppula Announces Retirement

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16-year NHL veteran Valtteri Filppula has ended his playing career. Helsinki-based Jokerit of Finland’s second-tier league, Mestis, where he spent the 2024-25 campaign, made the announcement today.

Filppula, 41, hasn’t played in the NHL since the 2020-21 campaign but remained steadily active overseas. After a strong three-year run in Switzerland with Genève-Servette HC of the National League, he returned to Jokerit, where he began his professional career, last summer as player and part-owner.

Jokerit, a staple of top-flight Finnish hockey, joined Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League in the mid-2010s but withdrew from the league abruptly in 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They were denied re-entry into the top-level Liiga and thus restarted play in Mestis in 2023-24. Filppula captained the team to a Mestis championship this season and finished second on the team in scoring with 14-27–41 in 39 games, but Jokerit dropped the Liiga relegation series against Pelicans and will thus remain in Mestis for 2025-26.

It was a mostly triumphant end to Filppula’s 22-year professional career. He made his Liiga (then the SM-liiga) debut with Jokerit in 2003-04, one year after the Red Wings selected him in the third round of the 2002 NHL draft. He led the league in rookie scoring that year and then reached the championship series in 2004-05 before heading to Detroit for 2005-06.

Filppula spent most of his first season in North America with AHL Grand Rapids, where he exploded out of the gate for a 20-50–70 scoring line in 74 games and was naturally a participant in the league’s All-Star Game. He earned a full-time role on the powerhouse Red Wings for 2006-07 and never looked back. The 6’0″ center played a key depth role in Detroit’s back-to-back Stanley Cup Final appearances in 2008 and 2009, winning the only ring of his career in the former year, recording 27 points and a +15 rating in 45 games across the two runs.

The left-shot pivot got more of a run in top-six minutes in the years to come, but his offense was hot and cold from year to year. After scoring 23 goals and a career-high 66 points for Detroit in 81 games in the 2011-12 campaign, he mustered just 17 points in 41 games in the lockout-shortened 2013 season, leading the team to let him walk in unrestricted free agency after the five-year, $15MM deal he signed in the 2008 offseason expired.

Filppula landed another five-year deal on the open market, receiving $25MM from the Lightning to stay in the Atlantic Division. His offensive production came roaring back, lighting the lamp a career-best 25 times in 75 games in 2013-14 while playing just south of 20 minutes per night. In Year 2 in Tampa, he played a crucial top-line role with Alex Killorn and Steven Stamkos as the Bolts marched to the Stanley Cup Final but lost to the Blackhawks. He scored 4-10–14 in 26 games in that playoff run.

His offense soon began to taper off for good. He never eclipsed the 20-goal mark again after that 25-goal season, and his last time hitting 40 points was in the 2016-17 campaign. He remained a capable defensive presence in dwindling minutes, though. After brief stints with the Flyers and Islanders in the late 2010s, Filppula hit the open market in 2019 and reunited with Detroit on a two-year, $6MM deal.

An aging Filppula understandably wasn’t much of an impact player, especially on a 2019-20 Red Wings squad that finished with the worst points percentage of any team in the salary cap era. After recording a 12-24–36 scoring line with a -43 rating in 108 games for the Wings over two seasons, Filppula opted to play out the remainder of his career in Europe.

Filppula was one of Switzerland’s premier talents in his three-year run in the NL, scoring 47-84–131 in 145 games with a +16 rating for Genève-Servette after signing there in 2021. He won a league title with the club in 2023 while leading the postseason in assists and won a Champions Hockey League title as the top club in Europe in 2024. Heading overseas at the time also allowed him to represent Finland in the 2022 Winter Olympics, where he recorded two assists in six games as captain and won a gold medal. He also won a gold medal at the World Championship that year, making him the only Finnish member and most recent entrant of the Triple Gold Club.

Filppula retires after scoring 197 goals, 333 assists, and 530 points in 1,056 career regular-season games. The ever-steady center also won 50.8% of his career faceoffs and ranks 34th in playoff scoring since the 2004-05 lockout with 86 points in 166 career postseason games. All of us at PHR wish Filppula the best in retirement.

Photo courtesy of Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports.

Philadelphia Flyers Coaching Search Updates

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As one of the several teams looking for a new head coach this offseason, the Philadelphia Flyers are taking their time with the search. In a new article from Kevin Kurz of The Athletic, the Philadelphia-based journalist publicized the most recent developments from the Flyers organization.

As expected, Kurz indicates the Flyers are monitoring Rick Tocchet’s situation in Vancouver, as he’s viewed as their favorite candidate. Philadelphia won’t be allowed to engage with Tocchet until his contract formally expires on June 30th, but the Flyers will have interest if he doesn’t extend with the Canucks.

The only candidate that Kurz explicitly stated isn’t considered a fit is David Carle from the University of Denver, who recently withdrew his name from consideration for the Chicago Blackhawks. As other potential candidates, Kurz reports that Joel Quenneville and Western Michigan University’s Pat Ferschweiler haven’t been ruled out, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Flyers will target either.

Lastly, after the Flyers dismissed three of their assistant coaches last week, Kurz believes this indicates the team will retain Brad Shaw as an assistant coach. Before being named the team’s interim head coach toward the end of the 2024-25 campaign, Shaw served as Philadelphia’s associate coach for approximately three years.

[SOURCE LINK]

Flyers’ Rasmus Ristolainen Out Six Months Following Triceps Surgery

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Rasmus Ristolainen underwent successful surgery on his right triceps tendon last month, the team confirmed today, following a statement from GM Daniel Brière last weekend. The procedure carries a minimum six-month recovery time, so Ristolainen will miss at least the first few weeks of the 2025-26 season.

The 6’4″ right-shot defenseman missed the last two-plus months of the 2023-24 campaign with the same injury and had surgery to address it in early March, so he got more of a head start last summer. He was healthy out of the gate in 2024-25 and even churned out the best defensive results of his 12-year career, averaging north of 20 minutes per game for the first time in three years while recording a 4-15–19 scoring line in 63 games with a plus-three rating.

The Flyers attempted to move the 30-year-old Ristolainen at the trade deadline to capitalize on his strong season, but there weren’t any takers after setting a first-round pick as their asking price. They will now hope he can replicate his strong performance in a pairing with Egor Zamula next season, as Philly looks to inch closer toward playoff contention.

Undergoing the same surgery in back-to-back years is never a good sign, though, especially for a skater in the latter half of his career. The good news is he was able to rebound nicely from the procedure last year, so there’s plenty of optimism he can do so again.

Ristolainen still has two years left on his contract, carrying a $5.1MM cap hit, as part of the five-year, $25.5MM extension he signed in 2022.

Philadelphia Flyers Dismiss Three Coaches

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John Tortorella wasn’t the only one on the chopping block from the Philadelphia Flyers’ disappointing 2024-25 campaign. A short while ago, the Flyers announced they were not retaining Rocky Thompson or Darryl Williams as assistant coaches, nor Angelo Ricci as the club’s skills coach.

Williams is the most-veteran coach of the group, having started his professional coaching career as a video coach for the Vancouver Canucks in the 2008-09 season. He spent six years in that role, as well as enjoying the team’s run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2011, before becoming an assistant coach for the New York Rangers in 2014-15. He was let go by the Rangers after the 2017-18 season, the same time the organization relieved head coach Alain Vigneault of his duties.  Interestingly enough, Williams became an assistant coach again in the 2021-22 season, this time with the Flyers.

Meanwhile, Thompson has enjoyed his longest stretch as an assistant coach with Philadelphia. He briefly served as the Edmonton Oilers assistant coach in 2014-15 and the San Jose Sharks’ in 2020-21. He served as the head coach of the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires and AHL’s Chicago Wolves during the in-between years outside of the NHL, and joined the Flyers coaching staff for the 2022-23 season.

Ricci is arguably the least known of the trio, having only served as skills coach for the Buffalo Sabres and Flyers. Before his move to Philadelphia, Ricci was a youth hockey mainstay in Denver, serving as the Colorado Thunderbirds U16 AAA team from 2005 to 2020.

Flyers Should Be Moderate Buyers This Offseason

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  • Although General Manager Daniel Brière would like to add more pieces than he subtracts this offseason for the Philadelphia Flyers, don’t expect them to be wild spenders. Anthony Di Marco of DailyFaceoff writes that Brière will only look for specific areas of need, rather than go after the market’s biggest fish. The only hypothetical option Di Marco listed was Brock Nelson of the Colorado Avalanche on a three-year deal, given the Flyers’ need for centers. Meanwhile, although the team may like to improve their disappointing goaltending, Di Marco doesn’t believe Brière will be interested in any of the options on the free-agent market.

    [SOURCE LINK]

Flyers Notes: Coaching Search, Ristolainen, Ersson

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At the end of March, it was confirmed that the Philadelphia Flyers will be among several teams seeking a new head coach this summer. Considering this, Jordan Hall of NBC Sports Philadelphia provided various updates regarding the Flyers’ head coaching search as summer approaches.

First, Hall reported that the Flyers are not following a strict timeline for their search, and they will conduct all research internally instead of hiring an external firm for assistance. They’ll start their research at the base level, as Hall indicated that Philadelphia hasn’t begun making a short list yet. Still, General Manager Daniel Brière confirmed Brad Shaw will be interviewed after serving as the team’s interim head coach for the last month of the regular season.

According to Jackie Spiegel of The Philadelphia Inquirer, unfortunately, the hottest name on the coaching market, David Carle of the University of Denver, isn’t considered a serious candidate for the job. Hall shared that Brière would like to start adding to the team rather than subtracting from it, and that change in philosophy should affect their eventual hire. Given the mixture of youth and veterans on the roster, the Flyers will want to find a coach who can blend development with contention.

To hypothesize, Jay Woodcroft is likely the top available option for coaches with considerable experience with development and the playoffs. Woodcroft guided the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors to a Pacific Division Playoff Championship in 2020-21, before coaching the Edmonton Oilers to the Western Conference Finals a year later.

Other notes from Philadelphia:

  • As reported by Charlie O’Connor of PHLY Sports, Brière commented on the status of defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen, whose season prematurely ended due to an upper-body injury. Unfortunately, Ristolainen’s upper-body issue was confirmed as an arm injury, similar to the one that ended his 2023-24 season in February. Ristolainen underwent surgery to repair the injury and may not start the 2025-26 season on time. As a potential trade candidate for the Flyers heading into the offseason, the recent injury history and delayed start to next year may preclude Philadelphia from receiving any worthwhile offers for their Finnish blueliner.
  • In a separate injury update from Hall, netminder Samuel Ersson admitted to a lingering lower-body injury that plagued him most of the season. Unsurprisingly, something was afflicting Ersson, as he had an up-and-down campaign, which, admittedly, is more than the other Flyers netminders can say. After maintaining a .902 SV% through the first two months of the regular season, Ersson’s SV% dropped to an. .874 mark from December through March.

Shaw Interested In Returning To Philly

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  • Brad Shaw, who served as the Flyers interim head coach after the team fired John Tortorella, said today he would be happy to remain with Philly’s coaching staff even if the club does select an outside hire for the lead role, per Jordan Hall of NBCS Philly. Shaw noted that he would be interested in the head coaching position, and he’ll meet with GM Daniel Briere next week to see where things stand. This is the second interim head coaching position for Shaw, who experienced a similar situation with the New York Islanders during the 2005-06 season when head coach Steve Stirling was fired. Shaw guided the Isles to an 18-18-4 record and was not retained. He has since bounced around the league in various assistant coaching roles.

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