The truth is that it should have come sooner, and it probably isn't enough.
The first year was a huge success. He restored a modicum of competence and professionalism. Since barely beating Montreal in the playoffs, the Flyers have looked lost and never seemed to have an answer from Vigneault.
Last season was a mess for theFlyers. They lost games seven games by 5 goals or more if the players didn't believe in the coach. Carter Hart, who was supposed to be the franchise's answer in net, was a disaster. The criticism of him probably didn't help. Robin Lehner, a goalie on another team, called for Vigneault to be fired.
It would be fair to say that most of the success at New York was due to Robert Luongo and the other goalies. He is not the person you want to help a young goalie through his troubles.
The outlier GM Chuck Fletcher decided to give the outlier another chance, and he had a handy excuse of Hart's supposed awful season. Changes were made with the departure of a star player. You don't have to read between the lines to know that the coaching staff wasn't an asset to the team. Shayne Gostisbehere was packaged with a second-round pick in order to get the Arizona Coyotes to take him away from the Philadelphia Flyers.
The new acquisitions looked good for 6-7 games, as the new spark for the year. The new acquisition, the analytical black hole, looked like a combo of Alex Ovechkin andBrett Hull.
The wheels came off once the team's shooting percentage cooled off. The Philadelphia Flyers are in the midst of an 8-game losing streak, with a 7-1 thumping at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday finally ending their misery. To his credit, he took all the blame. The power play was a 30th in the league and was coached by his friend, assistant coach,Michel Therrien, who was fired.
At the end of the day, it is my call. I am the one who decides which personnel to put on the ice, whether it be on the power play or penalty killing. Our power play is struggling right now and it is not French Mike's fault. I am the big guy. I have to find a way to make sure that the power play works.
The PP struggles date back to last season. Claude Giroux has been one of the most dominant players in the game. James van Riemsdyk has been a power-play specialist his entire career. Giroux was set up on the right when the fans in the building knew the left wall was his office. He was a good soldier and never publicly complained, but he was clearly frustrated as Therrien put him in a position to fail, as the unit would listlessly the puck around with no one-timer options available.
At 5 on 5, the Flyers relied on trying to hit home run passes from the defense deep in their own zone and a strategy of giving up the puck as soon as possible. When Rick Tocchet was traded to Pittsburgh in 1991, Kevin Stevens told him to keep the puck in Philadelphia. Thirty years later, the franchise is still beholden to the legacy of Bobby Clarke and Cup wins.
The team with tons of cap space and a highly regarded prospect pool, which was inherited by Fletcher, seemingly just needed to not screw up. He didn't know what he was doing.
Mike Yeo is the interim guy, he was the assistant to the former mentor of the current one. The change has to be a positive at this point, but the most recent one saw him get fired from St. Louis in the middle of the season. The Blues won the Stanley Cup after he was replaced by Craig Berube.
It feels like more of the same, even though the Flyers made changes.
