Flyers reportedly interviewed Pat Ferschweiler for head coach job

After reports surfaced that the Philadelphia Flyers have not fully started their search for a new head coach and are at the very beginning of the hiring process, it seems like they have very quietly already interviewed at least one candidate for the job.

According to ESPN’s Kevin Weekes, the Flyers interviewed Western Michigan head coach Pat Ferschweiler this week.

Ferschweiler is considered a strong candidate for the Flyers job and due to some obvious connections to the organization, was almost guaranteed to at least have a conversation about it with the front office. Ferschweiler was a teammate of Flyers’ president of hockey operations Keith Jones on the very same team that Ferschweiler coaches, the Western Michigan Broncos, from 1990 to 1992.

But it isn’t just about him being friendly with people that run the Flyers now. Ferschweiler led his somewhat underdog Broncos team — a program that rarely ever experienced any success whatsoever — to a national championship earlier this month. It was an achievement that was simply the end result of working hard to set a standard at a school that didn’t really know any glory.

From 1973, when the program was established, to when Ferschweiler joined the team as head coach in 2021, the Broncos went to the Frozen Four (then just known as the national tournament) a total of just seven times. In the four years under Ferschweiler’s control, they have not missed a tournament and rapidly rose the rankings. It’s that level of success that is causing him to get attention from the NHL.

Ferschweiler has been in the NHL before. After four seasons as an assistant coach at Western Michigan, the Minnesota native was hired by the AHL Grand Rapids Griffins to join Jeff Blashill’s bench for the 2014-15 season. And when Blashill took over for Mike Babcock one year later as the Red Wings’ bench boss, Ferschweiler came with him and was an assistant in Detroit for four seasons before the entire coaching staff was fired after the 2018-19 season. He then returned to the Broncos and that is where we find ourselves now, with Ferschweiler potentially returning to the NHL.

The 55-year-old coach will face some stiff competition though. Recent reports have heavily linked Rick Tocchet to the Flyers’ job, and it is expected that interim head coach Brad Shaw will also be involved in the interview process and is a strong candidate to have the interim label removed before next season.

Now that there is a brief sign of life for the Flyers’ search for a new head coach, we might be able to see this process speed up and have them conduct all their interviews and have their discussions and then hire their new coach, within the next few weeks or so. Or, they will just go completely quiet and do this all in the middle of the summer for some reason.

Giving the college hockey coach that just won the big one and clearly elevated the team he was in charge of, an opportunity to prove themselves in the NHL, is really never a bad option. Now, we’ll just wait and see what their decision is or if this is just a very early interview to do their due diligence.