GMs like to give their new coaches a few days of familiarization. They also prefer to hire them on the eve of an easier game, so as to maximize the chances of getting off to a good start.
Chuck Fletcher chose to fire Alain Vigneault on game day, Monday. And the opponent was nothing relaxing: the Colorado Avalanche.
Mike Yeo suffered a 7-5 loss to the Avalanche in his first game behind the Flyers bench, the ninth consecutive loss.
Coaches always have a big part of accountability in a club’s failures, but to understand the Flyers’ problems, let’s retrace Fletcher’s journey.
The son of famed Cliff Fletcher, a decades-long NHL manager, was on trend when he was hired with the Minnesota Wild in 2009 at the age of 42. He was a rising star in hockey management, after many years as an assistant in Florida, Anaheim and Pittsburgh.
Bad decisions
Fletcher has vowed to rebuild the Wild, ruled out of the playoffs in three of the previous five springs. His first major decision, in February 2010, was to swap a freshly drafted first-round defenseman Nick Leddy for a somewhat experienced but still young defenseman Cam Barker. A disaster.
Barker played barely a year and a half in Minnesota, with disastrous results, and he went into exile in KHL in 2012. He was playing in Rouen, France, last year. Leddy already has 800 games on the clock.
In June 2011, Fletcher decided to change the dynamics of the club. He parted with his best defenseman, then 26-year-old Brent Burns, to get three coins to build the club’s future: Charlie Coyle, Devin Setoguchi and a first-round pick, now Zack Phillips.
Setoguchi lasted less than two years with the Wild, Coyle became a good third-line center, and Phillips never reached the NHL. Burns had five seasons of over 60 points in San Jose and he won the Norris in 2017.
The arrival of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise in 2012, acquired at a price of 98 million each for 13 years, gave a boost to the Wild and allowed Fletcher to hide his bad decisions.
It should be noted that the acquisition of goaltender Devan Dubnyk, a good move, also helped the Wild have good regular seasons between 2014 and 2017, without ever making it through the second round of the playoffs.
The acquisition of rental players Martin Hanzal and Ryan White from first-round picks in 2017 and second-round picks in 2018 was another tremendous blow to the waters.
Fletcher was fired in April 2018 after another first-round loss. The core was aging and the Wild was already on the downward slope.
A second chance in Philadelphia
However, you never stay unemployed for too long when you have a good reputation, justified or not. Fletcher was hired in Philadelphia eight months later to replace Ron Hextall, who had rebuilt the lineup from scratch or so.
Fletcher inherited a nucleus made up of Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier, Jakub Voracek, Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim and Ivan Provorov, with, behind the scenes, young Carter Hart, Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee at the dawn of a professional career .
The rebuilding job was not finished, but Fletcher, no doubt encouraged by a hurried owner, pulled out the checkbook again.
By hiring Alain Vigneault in April 2019, he took on the task of giving him some reinforcement and experience. But at the price, among other things, of an indecent contract of almost 50 million for seven years at the center Kevin Hayes, who had yet exceeded the mark of 50 points only once in his career. In the process, he gave up second and third round picks to supporting defenseman Justin Braun.
The Flyers missed the playoffs in two of the first three years of Fletcher’s reign. They finished at 19e rank in the general classification last year, due, among other things, to the poor performance of goalkeeper Carter Hart, sent too young into the mouth of the wolf.
Short-term solutions
In order to straighten the bar, Fletcher opted for band-aid. He sacrificed first-round picks in 2021 (13e overall) and second round in 2023 for defender Rasmus Ristolainen. He gave two young players, Nolan Patrick and Philippe Myers, to offensive defenseman Ryan Ellis, 30, and his annual contract of $ 6.2million for the next six years.
Patrick and Myers are not doing anything worthwhile, but Ellis, still injured, will mortgage the payroll of the Flyers for a long time. Ristolainen is in fourth place in terms of average usage at 9:02 pm. He has five points in 21 games.
And despite all these acquisitions, the Flyers rank seventh and penultimate in the Metropolitan section (8-11-4 record), nine points from a playoff spot and 24e rank of the general classification.
Hired by the same Fletcher, let us remember, Alain Vigneault is paid 5 million this year. The Flyers will owe him $ 10 million for 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, unless he finds a job elsewhere in the NHL by then. Money doesn’t change the world, except …
A beneficial internship for Norlinder
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Mattias Norlinder
Mattias Norlinder therefore found himself in Laval on Tuesday morning, at the forefront of the first wave in numerical superiority in training. This third-round pick in 2019 was expected to return to Sweden if he failed to break through the training in Montreal under an agreement between the NHL and Swedish teams, but as the deadline of the 1er December has passed, the 21-year-old will be able to continue his apprenticeship in the American League for the remainder of the season. This is great news for its development. Norlinder has great attacking potential, but he still had a lot of difficulty adjusting to the rigors of the North American game. His career would undoubtedly have declined by returning to Sweden, or at least he would have moved further away from the NHL.