Where do you even begin with something like this?
Do you point out the obvious?
The Flyers hadn’t scored a goal in 95 shots on net. For those keeping track at home, that’s 160 minutes of shutout hockey for opposing teams since the start of the second period against Buffalo about a week ago. Ryan Miller for two periods, Johan Hedberg for three, and then Roberto Luongo for another three.
The Flyers ended October with a win against Carolina before going on a 7-1-0 streak through the beginnings of November. Since their rough win to start the Western road-trip in Los Angeles, the team is 1-6-0.
So what happened in the middle of November?
Darroll Powe, who was up to that point a main goal scorer for the team sadly enough, and Blair Betts, who may have been one of the more consistent defensive forwards on the team, both went down to shoulder injuries. Seriously though, without touching on the fact that Darroll Powe’s position as one of the team’s top goal-scorers this season since he’s a good, hard-working kid, if the team is losing games because Powe and Betts are injured, you can throw in the towel right now.
Danny Briere has been in and out of the lineup for various reasons including injury, suspension, and flu, but it’s not like he was out for all of the games. We’ve had Briere out of the lineup before and were fine.
Simon Gagne’s still out, but quite frankly, we went 7-1-0 without him to start the month and 1-6-0 without him to close the month. His absence is not what is wrong with this team.
Injuries are a poor excuse, and everyone knows what excuses are like…
Scapegoats are even worse than excuses, but if you really believe that firing Stevens was a “scapegoat”-esque move by Paul Holmgren, then you have some hockey to watch; 263 games of hockey to be exact.
- Fred Shero – 554 games coached (2 Stanley Cups)
- Mike Keenan – 320 games coached
- Paul Holmgren – 264 games coached
- John Stevens – 263 games coached
- Pat Quinn – 262 games coached
- Ken Hitchcock – 254 games coached
- Terry Murray – 212 games coached
I hope your mind was just blown. If it wasn’t then I offer you this lovely little read on THN’s 2007-08 Coach of the Year, John Stevens: The Hockey News article. It’s all well and good to credit a coach for taking a team from last place and going to the Eastern Conference Finals the following year, but there are many things that John Stevens should not take credit for.
We all knew this was coming. Let’s be serious for a second. The Flyers have been winning despite John Stevens, not because of him. That’s a serious issue when it comes to coaching. Give credit where credit is due. In this case it belongs to Paul Holmgren for assembling the team that brought a new era of winning hockey to Philadelphia. He may not have the salary cap completely figured out, but he’s definitely forged a team poised to win a Stanley Cup.
If you didn’t see this coming you missed something. Even Phinally Philly writer Dave Foley said it best during his Christmas special article:
John Stevens – A new job.
No explanation necessary.
If you really want a breakdown on why he was fired and why the majority of Philadelphia is dancing in the streets right about now, look no further than this article from just over a month ago:
I have neither the patience nor energy to re-explain word for word the disaster that has been John Stevens behind the bench for the Flyers. He did many great things for this organization and helped develop a lot of players that will be the faces of this franchise for years to come, but after player development, his abilities run dry.
Besides, for those waking up to this news (if they have been living under a rock that is), this morning is Christmas morning. Why ruin it with analysis that’s been beaten to death?
So Merry Christmas, and it’s now time to welcome Peter Laviolette.
Once upon a time there was a hard-working defenseman in the AHL named Peter Laviolette. This was of course many years ago, back when the Legion of Doom era in Philadelphia was just getting off the ground. Laviolette retired and began his coaching career.
In 1997-98 he finally became a head coach, but it was in the ECHL. He took the ECHL Wheeling Nailers to the playoffs
On December 4th, 2009, roughly a year after being fired in Carolina, Peter Laviolette was named the 17th head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers.
the same year the Philadelphia Phantoms won their first Calder Cup as AHL Champions. The following season Laviolette would move to the AHL ranks as head coach for the Providence Bruins, Boston’s AHL affiliate. There he would earn himself a Calder Trophy right after the Phantoms won.
He spent another season in the AHL and then became an assistant coach for the Boston Bruins. One year later he was finally a full-fledged NHL bench boss on the Island. He took the New York Islanders to the playoffs for the first time in seven years as his NHL debut. Again he took the Islanders to the playoffs only to move south to a relatively new franchise in Carolina that offseason.
He became the ‘Canes’ second ever head coach, replacing Paul Maurice. His first season in the south marked his first absence from a postseason as a head coach, and the following season was the lockout.
From there the organization put things together and came out roaring to start 2005-06. That was the year the Carolina Hurricanes became the first champions of post-lockout era hockey. Peter Laviolette, along with a number of talented former Flyers including Justin Williams and Rod Brind’Amout, won the Stanley Cup for the former Hartford Whalers, a team that Paul Holmgren, John Stevens, and even Chris Pronger know very well. In fact that is where Holmgren originally became friends with former head coach (that feels so great to say) John Stevens and where he saw a young kid named Chris Pronger emerge into a dominant NHL force.
Now the man who accomplished in Carolina what so many couldn’t in Hartford will be taking the reigns in Philadelphia.
To say the situation is a perfect fit would be wishful thinking, but it’s not terrible. Laviolette was the U.S. Olympic Team’s coach for the 2006 games. Until recently he was the winngest American-born head coach in NHL history, but John Tortorella took over that claim this year. He knows what to expect from players, and he’s the type of coach that can get a lot from very little. Given the talent on this Flyers team that exceeds anything he’s ever had to work with, it could be a very good chance for Laviolette to show what he’s really about.
He likes to play an aggressive style forecheck, which was what Holmgren was pressuring Stevens to implement this offseason, and he “activates” defenseman for the rush. Laviolette is truly the wizard of new-era hockey. With that of course comes his famous stance on fighting. He doesn’t advocate fighting to his players strongly for injury reasons, but he might have to make some considerations for the current Flyers roster. The Hurricanes were never built to be fighters, but the Flyers are a different breed. The team has all the finesse that any ‘Canes roster has ever had, but also has a direct, in-your-face style that Philadelphia hockey is known for.
There will be adjustments as there always are, but this is for the better. I think at this point everyone can agree with that.
There was also a reason he was fired in Carolina. The team had lost a lot of its talent in recent years and Laviolette had not been able to keep a depleted roster among the elites of the Eastern Conference. A couple years of narrowly missing the playoffs thanks to a force of an NHL team in Washington and the Atlantic Conference taking up most of the playoff slots eventually spelled the end of Laviolette in Carolina. Paul Maurice was hired back to coach a Laviolette-based team that eventually went deep in the playoffs last year. Now, with more injuries, the season for Carolina has turned into a disaster under Maurice’s second stint in Laviolette’s wake.
It’s no question that the post-lockout Hurricanes, created by Laviolette, took advantage of new-era hockey when they won the Stanley Cup. The talent on that team was not the greatest, but by buying into Laviolette’s system they were able to bring a Cup to Carolina. With far more talent in Philadelphia, the sky is the limit.
The Laviolette era in Philadelphia begins tonight against an Ovechkin-less Washington Capitals. Look for the team to come out playing like their jobs depend on it.
