Musings & Quick Hits: May 7, 2019
1) The least surprising thing about the Flyers' announcement of their 2019-20 coaching staff was the instant negativity it was met with by many on social media. From my standpoint, I don't think there is cause for celebration or alarm. The real key to the offseason is how player personnel gets adjusted over the summer. That does not mean the choice of assistant coaches is meaningless. Of course it matters. The staff needs to mesh into a cohesive whole and to push the correct buttons at the right times.
However, the coaching staff adjustments will not be the No. 1 thing that makes or breaks the team next season. It will be the mix of skaters, their level of buy-in and chemistry, and, last but far from least, the goalie play. Those are the biggest must-haves on a successful team.
2) My first impression when the Flyers announced the hiring of both Mike Yeo and Michel Therrien as assistant coaches under new head coach Alain Vigneault was, "Chuck Fletcher is doing a 180 on staff composition to what Ron Hextall did in 2015."
When the Flyers hired Dave Hakstol from the NCAA ranks to be the Flyers head coach, neither he nor any of the assistant coaches had ever previously been an NHL head coach. With the exception of veteran assistant coach Joe Mullen having been an interim head coach at the American Hockey League level, none had been a head coach in a pro league although the staff had many years of combined NHL assistant coaching experience.
Two seasons ago, fresh off coaching the Erie Otters to an Ontario Hockey League championship and gaining a reputation as a fast-rising coaching wunderkind, Kris Knoblauch was hired by the Flyers to replace the departing Mullen as an assistant coach. One of his primary duties, of course, was to coach the power play.
Fletcher has taken the polar opposite course with his first batch of coaching hires. The combination of Vigneault (1,216 regular season games), Therrien (756 NHL regular season games) and Yeo (482 games) is about as experienced of a staff as you will ever see.
That's not necessarily good or bad. It remains to be seen how the new hires come together as a staff. You can't even begin to create a team identity when the coaches aren't on the same page. Vigneault's staff management style is to
work by consensus and to delegate a fairly high degree of autonomy to his assistants to manage their sets of duties.
Ultimately, this and every coaching staff will be judged by wins and losses. Nothing short of the Flyers getting back into the playoffs and advancing at least to the Eastern Conference semifinals for the first time since 2012 could be construed as a success for the 2019-20 squad. Even more important than the choice of assistant coaches will be the roster the staff is given to coach. Upgrades are still needed over the summer. That's simply the truth.
2) My second thought after the announcement of the coaching staff was, "Fletcher seems to be sending a message to the players that there will be no place to hide if they don't buy in to the way Fletcher has stated that he wants the team to play." Both Therrien and Yeo are aggressive, feisty and direct in their communication style, although not identical by any means.
Those who know and have played for Yeo said that, while he can get on players and let his displeasure be known in no uncertain terms, he doesn't cross certain boundary lines. He also is able and willing to show another, more laid-back side to his personality. That assessment of his style more or less matches Yeo's self-description to the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
"I don’t know what a player’s coach is,” he said. “Player’s coach to me would almost be an insult. That sounds like it’s somebody who’s just a rah-rah support you all the time. Never challenge you. And that’s not the case.
“I love to have fun. I think the players want to have fun. I think they want to come to the rink and have a fun environment. I also know that they want to be challenged. And they want to be held accountable. They want their teammates being held accountable.
“So for me, there’s not a lot of gray areas. It’s black and white. It’s not about trying to embarrass somebody or humiliate them. ... To me it’s just honesty. If they’re not playing well, or if they’re not doing something, then I’ll tell them."
Therrien's style is more notoriously abrasive and his boundary lines in challenging players, while nowhere near the ultra old-school realm of infamous former Vancouver Canucks coach Bill Laforge, go further than Yeo's style and closer to the Mike Keenan territory where players sometimes feel personally attacked. For example, Therrien once infamously told Danny Briere in Montreal that his teammates didn't respect him and didn't want to play with him. Therrien himself knew that it was untrue, but it intended to motivate Briere. Therrien had a particularly contentious relationship with PK Subban in Montreal, and also wore on players in Pittsburgh.
Therrien also has his supporters. Former Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty told Dave Stubbs, for example, that he learned more under Therrien than he had under any previous coach for whom he played.
"We missed the playoffs in my breakout [2011-12] season, and I had so many holes in my game. I wasn't really playing with the pressure of being expected to be a top player on one of the top teams. Numbers-wise, my statistics might look almost the same the past few years but [Therrien] took my game to a whole new level," Pacioretty said to NHL.com in Feb. 2017.
It should also be noted in Subban's case that his Norris Trophy winning 2012-13 season came with Therrien as his coach. Whatever their disagreements were over Subban's style, they had some success together.
3) While the 45-year-old Yeo is likely to have a smooth transition back to being an assistant coach and working in the consensus-driven coaching environment that Vigneault tries to foster, the 55-year-old Therrien is very accustomed to running the show. He's been exclusively a head coach at the junior, AHL and NHL levels since 1990.
However, he and Vigneault are good friends. By virtue of Vigneault handpicking Therrien in conjuction with Fletcher, there is clearly trust that the assistant will not try to undercut the head coach. Therrien has been around the block in the sport long enough times to know that there will be adjustments to make in being part of -- but not the final decision-maker -- of the staff in Philadelphia.
Yeo has been an assistant coach before at the NHL level, serving under Therrien and Dan Bylsma with the Penguins. His primary responsibilities included working with the team on both ends of special teams. While the Penguins power play was already formidable (and remained so), the penalty kill success rate improved substantially, especially in the second half of the 2006-07 season after his arrival. The strong reputation that Yeo built as an assistant coach helped him parlay his coaching career into head coaching opportunities.
Chuck Fletcher hired Yeo first to be the head coach of the AHL's Houston Aeros, who reached the Calder Cup Final on 2010-11 after a 46-28-6 regular season, and then as the Minnesota Wild's head coach. He was with the Wild for four-plus seasons, twice reaching the second round of the playoffs. The team was unable to take the next step, however, and his tenure came to an end with the team off to a 23-22-10 start in 2015-16.
After serving as an associate coach with St. Louis as Ken Hitchcock's eventual successor of choice, Yeo got the head coaching job. Things didn't work out as planned, with the Blues missing the playoffs last season (after a red hot start) and being inexplicably mired in the Western Conference basement at the time he was fired this season.
Given the way things went in St. Louis this season both before his firing and in the team's 180 after Craig Berube moved from assistant to head coach, Yeo was not likely an immediate top candidate to become an NHL head coach again. Thus, it made sense for him to take a backward half-step, reunite with Fletcher (who has always held him in high esteem), and become an assistant coach again.
4) Assuming he is not traded this offseason, Shayne Gostisbehere is the player whose relationship with Therrien (who is likely to be in charge of the defense corps) and on-ice results will be the one I'll be most interested in seeing evolve next season.
When Gostisbehere had his Exit Day media availability in 2017, he said, "My confidence on the ice comes through my offensive ability. ...I like blocking a shot every once in awhile but the offensive part of the game is what drives my confidence. When I don't see pucks going in the net or the offense isn't there, it's hard for me to stick with it."
Gostisbehere said at the time that, moving forward, he would rely more on doing the things that drove his confidence. He said that the defensive side of his two-way game was driven by his offense; he played better defensively, too, when the points were coming regularly on the attack.
"It's pretty cliché but I just said I'm going to go out there and have fun. I'm going to make plays and I don't care if I get yelled at," he said with a broad grin.
Many fans at the time attributed the "yelled at" remark to refer to then-head coach Dave Hakstol. While Gostibehere got in Hakstol's doghouse a few times in his second NHL season (including being a healthy scratch a few times), it was actually assistant coach Gord Murphy who was one more likely to yell at a defenseman whom he felt was going off-system.
The 2017-18 season was Gostisbehere's best in the NHL thus far, on both sides of the puck. The points came regularly and he also showed defensive improvement with a particularly notable acumen for preventing entries at the blueline. He'll never be a force on the walls or down low because he gives up size, but he was not a defensive liability overall. As a result, he gained trust from both Hakstol and Murphy and wound up on the top defensive pairing for most of the season.
Year four for "Ghost", unfortunately, was much more akin to his second NHL season. Teammate Travis Sanheim flourished after coaches changes that saw Hakstol replaced (on an interim basis that lasted the rest of the season) by Scott Gordon and Rick Wilson come out of retirement to take over for Murphy (who was let go one day after Ron Hextall was fired as general manager).
Gostisbehere, who was off to a slow start before the changes, did not benefit after the switches.
"Definitely the toughest season I’ve been personally in my four years. It’s tough for sure," Gostisbehere said on April 7. "I’m not an excuse guy. I mean, I didn’t have the best season, obviously, and I felt I could’ve helped my teammates a lot more. It’s a grind. It was a mental grind this year."
Gostisbehere regressed in his play without the puck but his number one asset -- his work on the power play -- suffered as well. In terms of statistical 5-on-5 offensive production, he wasn't horrifically far off the mark from what he had done the previous season (5 goals, 18 assists, 23 points at 5-on-5 in 2018-19 compared to 6 goals, 26 assists, 32 points). On the whole, however, Gostisbehere's season a step backward for him even as he seemed well set up heading in to have a second straight strong season. The player's confidence dropped as the season progressed.
"You do the same thing and you expect same results and when it doesn’t happen it’s hard. Go back to mental thing you got to stick with it again I’m going to do the same thing this summer I'm going to train the same way and I’m going to have the same mentality going into camp, I want to get better as a player, I want to be a staple point as a defenseman in this league, one of the better ones not just one who is looked at offensively so it tough when you start a season and you see that net filling up and you see 7 goals against every other game and obviously change has happened. It's tough for sure, it was a tough season in general but again you just got to stick with it and remember what got you there," Gostisbehere said.
At times, Gostisbehere even once again found himself lacking confidence in what had been his bread-and-butter offensive situations.
"You have to do different things making plays, just like quarterbacks. You do the same thing, teams are going to pick up on it. I still have certain moves that I do every game and they still work but for me it’s a mental thing when a guy is coming at me and I'm, like, 'Will he fall for my fake? Probably not.' You've got have the confidence to just do it and go with it, that’s a huge part of my game just deception and fakes and my movement with the puck so obviously for me it’s just instilling that confidence in myself and going out there and doing it every night."
After the coaching chances, Gostisbehere continued to struggle and ended up in a reduced role (eventually on the third pair and then as a healthy scratch in the game where the Flyers were mathematically eliminated). For a time, he was even taken off the top power play unit by now-former assistant coach Kris Knoblauch and Gordon.
"With Rick coming in and different coaches and what not they tweak the style of not just me personally but how he wants the defense to play so I think I wouldn’t say they put handcuffs on me or anything but I’d say they pulled the range back quite a bit just in what they wanted us to do collectively [in terms of carrying the puck] as a D-corps," Gostisbehere said.
How well with Gostisbehere mesh with Vigneault and especially with Therrien? As long as "Ghost" is a Flyer come next season, the push-pull dynamic could be very interesting.
5) Despite the team's significant penalty kill upswing from just after Thanksgiving until the club was mathematically eliminated from the playoffs (after which, things cratered in just about every possible way, including the PK springing leaks again), I was a little bit surprised that Ian Laperriere retained on the NHL coaching staff. I was not, however shocked.
The team's PK ranks in recent years suggested that there would a change coming, although most hockey people (outside the Flyers organization as well as within) have insisted even off-the-record that Laperriere's coaching has never specifically been the problem with Philly's PK. My view, even as someone who has defended Lappy, is that the bottom line season-to-season numbers -- not over quarter seasons or half seasons, full seasons -- weren't showing that he was devising sustained solutions, either.
When the full-season PK numbers are unimpressive across a couple of different GMs and head coaches, that usually portends a change. It's similar to how the continued employment of pitching coaches and batting coaches in baseball are directly correlated (fairly or unfairly) to team ERA and hitting consistency. People don't see the caliber of work that goes on behind the scenes, nor do they care one iota unless the numbers pick up. That's just the reality of pro sports. Unless it shows in the bottom line, coaching changes are often the next step.
For those reasons, I thought Laperriere could be in trouble this offseason in terms of a spot on the NHL coaching staff although I expected that he'd remain in the organization one way or another (such as in moving back to a development coach role). However, as I stated above, I was not shocked that he is still on the NHL staff.
First of all, most of what Chuck Fletcher saw of the PK after taking over as general manager was pretty good. Small sample size notwithstanding, I suspect that Fletcher used his own observations as a heavier factor in weighing the decision than on what happened in previous recent seasons or the first quarter of this season. Whether that's the right approach or the wrong one, I believe that Fletcher trusted what he saw firsthand more than he trusted the stats. Fan and media opinion were non-factors, in all likelihood.
Correspondingly, I think Fletcher believes that the successful adjustments the Flyers made on the PK as this season progressed were on the right track to becoming something sustainable over the longer haul. Improvements came first in terms of up-ice pressure and challenging entries (which was pretty good all year, but own-zone play was an utter mess in the first quarter and worsened by poor goaltending). Later, the team started to a better job at challenging in their own zone. The progress accelerated when Gordon came in and made further tweaks in conjunction with Laperriere to really emphasize sealing off the strong side.
Oddly enough, when the Flyers had a PK upswing in the second half of the 2015-16 season, going at about 83 percent after a poor first half, the adjustment that was made was to be LESS aggressive and take away plays made through the middle. That worked until Washington shredded the Flyers PK in Games 1 to 3 of their playoff series (partially because Sean Couturier was lost for the series in Game 1 and partially because the likes of Nick Bäckström, John Carlson and, of course, Alex Ovechkin are deadly when they have any time to make plays or shoot).
Over the last few seasons, the Flyers never really did find a good balance on their PK, although Laperriere and company tried various different subtle adjustments. There was an upswing in the final quarter of the 2017-18 season but then at atrocious first quarter to 2018-19. Finally, things started coming together in a way that seemed sustainable -- of which, the play of Carter Hart and, when healthy, Brian Elliott clearly played a major role as well.
While I don't think Laperriere's upbeat and energetic personality -- as well as a reputation for being someone players can talk to in confidence but who also challenges guys -- was a main factor in him remaining on staff to get a mix of different styles, it also didn't hurt his cause. Like it or not, there's something to be said for being a good soldier, showing enthusiasm and a strong work ethic. It's a common trait among many assistant coaches who last across multiple regimes.
6) This is neither here nor there: I am just curious from an historical standpoint but I haven't had a chance to research it as of yet. Has an NHL team except for the Montreal Canadiens and the former Quebec Nordiques simultaneously had a francophone head coach, two assistants and captain? The Flyers have that now between Vigneault, Therrien, Laperriere and team captain Claude Giroux.
7) OHL Finals: Two goals from Guelph Storm team captain Isaac Ratcliffe helped lift his team to a 7-2 victory on Monday night and cut their deficit in their series against the Ottawa 67's to two games to one. Game 4 is in Guelph on Wednesday night.
Ratcliffe has 12 goals in the playoffs to date. Combining the regular season and postseason, he has scored 62 goals in 86 games. Yes, it's only OHL hockey and not a predictor of future pro success. Yes, Ratcliffe is a physically mature draft-plus-two player with an elite OHL center on his line to get him the puck. Even so, it's impressive.
8) The 2019 World Selects Invitational tournament in Voorhees continues until tomorrow. I wrote an in-depth overview of the tourney for Elite Prospects on why many consider it to be an early glimpse at a host of future junior/college and even NHL pro standouts. For more
click here.
9) Today in Flyers History: On May 7, 2000, 23-year-old Andy Delmore became the first NHL rookie defenseman -and the first Flyers defenseman - to score a playoff hat trick. He also became the first NHL rookie defenseman to have two multi-goal games in a playoff series. The Flyers defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins, 6-3, in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series and went on to close out the series in six game.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»