Rick Tocchet reminds Flyers fans of many memorable teams and seasons. Here’s hoping he brings a mix of coaching and chemistry to return the franchise to a measure of those glory days.

The Flyers hope his return to the franchise will push them out of an extended rebuild and into playoff contention.

That said, “outsiders” like Peter Laviolette, Dave Hakstol, Alain Vigneault and John Tortorella didn’t have a lot of success in Philly, either. Of those coaches, Laviolette had the best record (.586 points percentage), and he got the Flyers to the 2010 Stanley Cup final.

The Philadelphia Flyers have re-signed forwards Rodrigo Abols and Oscar Eklind to one-year, two-way/one way, contract extensions, according to General Manager Daniel Briere.

Rick Tocchet will be tasked with directing the Philadelphia Flyers' rebuild. Philadelphia announced Wednesday it has hired Tocchet as the 25th head coach in franchise history to replace John Tortorella, who was fired on March 27 with only nine games left in the regular season.

From nearly the moment that John Tortorella was fired on March 27, speculation on who would become the Philadelphia Flyers’ next coach focused on one of their former great players, Rick Tocchet. Turns out,

The Flyers hired Tocchet on Wednesday to replace John Tortorella, who was fired March 27. Brad Shaw was interim coach for the final nine games of the season. Sanheim and Konecny represented Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February, where Tocchet was an assistant and helped guide it to the championship.

The Philadelphia Flyers are entering a new era with Rick Tocchet as head coach, bringing optimism to key players like Travis Sanheim and Travis Konecn

Peter Laviolette is famously remembered in Philadelphia for his timeout during Game 7 of the Flyers’ 2010 second-round playoff battle against the Bruins. The Flyers made history that postseason by erasing a 3-0 series deficit, punctuated by overcoming a 3-0 hole in Game 7 to win, 4-3, at TD Garden.