The Vancouver Canucks aren’t the only ones making a coaching change. Alain Vigneault has been relieved of his duties as head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers. Vigneault is under contract through the 2023-24 season and is one of the highest-paid coaches in the league with a $5MM salary. Assistant coach Michel Therrien has also been relieved of his duties. Mike Yeo will take over as interim head coach for the time being.
Vigneault, 60, was hired by the Flyers in 2019 after a few years away from the game, and had the team playing incredibly well in his first season behind the bench. Philadelphia posted a 41-21-7 record through the first 69 games of the 2019-20 season before the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown the NHL. When the Flyers returned for the bubble playoffs things didn’t look quite as good, but they still reached game seven of the second round against the New York Islanders after dispatching the Montreal Canadiens. Since that 4-0 defeat against the Islanders, in which they generated just 16 shots despite having won both game five and game six in overtime to extend the series, the Flyers haven’t looked the same.
The team posted a 25-23-8 record in 2020-21, missing the playoffs entirely by finishing sixth in the East Division. The Flyers were the only team in the entire NHL to allow more than 200 goals against in the shortened season, routinely seeing big, crooked numbers put up against them. Combine that with the fact that they scored only 163 and even those 25 wins seem like an unlikely total.
This year, things haven’t been much better. Philadelphia has lost eight in a row, are 1-7-2 in their last ten and were just embarrassed on home ice last night. A 7-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning with Carter Hart getting pulled after five goals on 15 shots was the dagger, in this case, as Vigneault will not get another chance to break the streak and turn things around.
He will be paid handsomely though, as relieving a coach of their duties in the NHL does not break their contract. He’ll be paid by the Flyers for the next two and a half years unless another team buys out part of the contract in order to hire him for their own team. The obvious speculation would land on a return to the Montreal Canadiens, who not only have leaned toward French-speaking head coaches but also now have an extra connection to Vigneault through the executive vice president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton, who worked with him (and fired him) in New York.
Yeo, who takes over as interim head coach, will be on his third stint leading a bench in the NHL. His first was with the Minnesota Wild under now-Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher, where he made the playoffs in three of five seasons. He then took over in St. Louis but was let go before two full years had even played out, with Craig Berube taking his place and leading the Blues to a Stanley Cup championship. Overall, his record as a head coach in the NHL sits at 246-181-55.
Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff was first to break the news.
Thank goodness. About time. Tocchet would be perfect.
bliss
The Flyers are a total mess
Vigneault is the Bobby Valentine of hockey.
HAHAHAHA…OMG. ??? Why?
Wrong fit maybe, but Vigneault is a good coach. Fire him, OK, but…Therrien is actually the right guy to take over, but sure, fire him too.
And THEN keep the one coach who just is a proven bum in Mike Yeo. He single handedly had a Cup champion Blues team in last place overall.
For the sake of Flyer’s fans, they better hope that that “interim” is very short. Very very interim.
But, if they had another coach in mind, why not just hire them now?
If you’d seen anything this team has done lately you’d know AV needed to go and that Therrien might have been the only other guy on the staff more deserving of a pink slip.
Therrien is definitely not the right guy for the job
Not defending AV’s work with the Flyers, just pointing out that Yeo is awful.
Therrien changed the culture in Pittsburgh 180 degrees. If not for the foundation of actual professionalism he introduced to our prior country club, Sid and Co. might have no Cups.
If you need a good bad cop, he’s the guy.
Tocchet would be a seemingly perfect hire, though. So, why is Yeo coaching instead of him? Maybe Tocchet (or Torts, for that matter) doesn’t have an out clause with TNT, I don’t know.
I wonder if they’re waiting for Trotz to get fired… I’d think his seat has to be heating up a bit with how poor the isles are playing
I would love trotz, but it’s gotta get real bad for him to let go of this year.
NHL teams love coach retreads. Why commit yourself to a dedicated coaching search to find the next up and coming coach when you can just promote/hire someone who has been a coach at a half dozen other teams with minor success. The process repeats itself everywhere.
Hire retread coach who has success for a year or two —> team struggles —> coach is fired and another retread coach is promoted/hired on a “interim” basis —> team performs just well enough to warrant the interim tag to get removed —> success for a year or two —> coach is fired —> rinse and repeat.
and yet in the samw manner they love to fire them on the drop of a hat.
Exactly. It’s crazy to me how stupid coaching hires are handled in the NHL. Maybe there just isn’t a pipeline of unproven, up-and-coming coaches easily available but is that because the coaching talent isn’t there or they’re all suppressed by this “old boy’s club” for the lack of a better term. In the other 3 major North American sports, you rarely see guys get more than 3 opportunities to be a head coach. At some point, it’s just agreed upon that you’re not head coaching material and better off in the college ranks/as an assistant. The NHL seems to highly disagree with that train of thought for whatever reason.
JT19. Don’t disagree, devil’s advocating. There is a bigger risk with a totally unknown commodity. Even a mediocre seasoned NHL coach is at least mediocre. I remember the Edmonton experiment with Dallas Eakins and his ‘swarm defense’. Now Eakins seems to be doing much better after learning from his first NHL stint… and it was with Edmonton. However Edmonton took a risk is the point and it flopped badly. Who gets maligned for that decision… the GM. Self preservation is the name of the game.
He’s not the right guy for any job other than destroying a team by turning the whole locker room against him.
Man… Mike Yeo isn’t much better…
This franchise is in complete disarray. I hope for G’s sake, he waves his no trade clause for a chance to contend
I hope for G’s sake he does what he prefers to and doesnt just listen to people on the internet.
I’m sure he could care less what “people on the internet” think.
I’m only speaking as a fan of his. I’d like to see the man win, not be stuck any longer on a middling franchise going absolutely nowhere with mediocre talent and mediocre management.
Hope the Avalanche are ready to go tonight, nothing more dangerous than a “wounded dog”?
The way the Avalanche are playing is very inconsistent and you know the Flyers are going to respond because they have been embarrassed over this losing streak.If the Avalanche don’t turn the puck over recklessly, they should be in good shape!! GO AVS!!!!
Vigneault and Therrian shouldnt be the only ones to go. Ownership needs to oust Fletcher. The organizational depth is a joke as demonstrated by the several players who do not belong in the NHL Has there been any memorable drafts (other than bad memories)? A coaching staff can only do so much with a less than full NHL caliber team. A different look, while necessary, isn’t going to right this ship until you change the quality of the team AND the front office.
It’s really Hextall’s drafts that have panned out.
Cost Lundqvist a cup with his terrible coaching
He didn’t cost the Queen anything. They got beat by a better team
Wonder if Boudreau wishes he waited another day? He jumped on his first offer and is headed to Vancouver, just a tad bit further from his home in Hershey (PA) than Philly.
Nothing says showing some heart and guts after your coach gets fired like giving up 5 goals in just over a period. Pathetic
but lets ignore scoring five goals after not scoring even three for who knows how long.
They’re 28th in the league at 2.32 goals per game so I apologize if I’m not jumping out of my seat with excitement after they score 5 goals, especially when they give up 7 for a 2nd game in a row and 29 in their last 5 games. The power play is 30th at a pathetic 13.4%
Can’t win if you can’t score on a consistent basis. This team is a train wreck in all facets of the game right now and it’s not getting better