The Case For Change

John Stevens is the second longest tenured coach in the Eastern Conference. He has guided his team to the playoffs in each of his two full seasons as head coach, including a run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2008. So, why do so many Flyers fans want to see him gone?

Stevens was a veteran AHL defenseman and captain of the Philadelphia Phantoms when he sustained a career ending eye injury in 1999.  He was asked by then Flyers GM Bob Clarke if was interested in trying his hand at coaching. Stevens accepted Clarke’s offer and became a Phantoms assistant under Flyers legend Bill Barber. When Barber was named Flyers coach early in the 2000-01 season, replacing Craig Ramsay, Stevens took over as Phantoms head coach.

Stevens’ Phantoms teams fared well, making the playoffs 4 out of 6 years and winning the 2005 Calder Cup as AHL Champions. After the Flyers assistant coach Wayne Fleming departed following the 2005-06 season, Stevens was promoted to the Flyers, under then head coach Ken Hitchcock.

Again, Stevens term as an assistant coach was short lived. The Flyers were a very flawed team in 2006-07, and Hitchcock was removed as head coach after just 8 games. Suddenly Stevens found himself as the head coach of a team that relied far too heavily on injury prone Peter Forsberg for offense, and several youngsters who seemed ready to take the next step, but chafed under the brusque Hitchcock-Mike Richards, Jeff Carter and RJ Umberger.

That season basically became an Orange and Black Bataan Death March. It was the first time the Flyers would finish last overall in their history. By January, general manager Paul Holmgren was peddling the scrap in an effort to build for the future. Stevens’ team didn’t win often, but it showed good effort most nights, despite the mounting loses.

That off season, the Flyers started a major rebuilding process. They added forwards Danny Briere, Scott Hartnell, Joffrey Lupul and Jim Dowd; defensemen Kimmo Timonen and Jason Smith. They re-signed trade deadline addition Martin Biron to keep the goal stable. The young players who had faltered the year before would have more help in the coming year.

And they did. Richards exploded with a breakout year. Carter and Umberger were 20 goal scorers. The new faces contributed mightily. There were still growing pains, of course, including a 10 game losing streak that saw the Flyers fall from leading the division to having to scramble for a playoff berth. A lot of the negatives were ignored in the glorious playoff run, especially since all star Simon Gagne missed most of the year and all of the playoffs.

Big things were expected for the 2008-09 season. Stevens looked to have the horses, but the team struggled with consistency all year. They seemed to have issues getting up for each game, and were plagued with poor starts. They showed a scary habit of not closing out games where they held slim leads. They showed a lot of poor decision making with the puck and took a lot of undisciplined penalties.

Despite all this, they won games, and were holding the 4th seed in the east heading into the last weekend of the season. All they needed was a point against the Rangers in their finale, but managed to blow a lead and lose 4-3.  That lost cost them home ice advantage against Pittsburgh in the opening round of the playoffs. In the playoffs, the Flyers outplayed the Pens at points, but shot themselves in the foot time and again. The final game, a 4-3 loss at the Wachovia Center in game six, saw the Flyers blow a 3-0 second period lead.

The Flyers promised their fans a new attitude. A new “hunt the puck” system was promised, which most took as a pledge to use an aggressive puck pressure system of forechecking. GM Paul Holmgren said that the team would be skating a lot and be hard to play against. The defense and leadership were shored up in trades and signings that brought in Chris Pronger, Ian Laperriere, Blair Betts and Ray Emery.

During the preseason, Stevens mentioned that he envisioned offensive pairs-two man units that would operate with a third interchangeable line mate. The pairs seemed to be Gagne and Richards, Hartnell and Carter and Briere and second year speedster Claude Giroux.

However, the pre-season opened with Gagne hurting, and the pairs saw little work together. It seemed that most of the early games saw only one half of the pairs dressing for each game. There was also little evidence of the new system in the first few games. Things picked up as the veterans started playing more, but the Flyers weren’t exactly beating the doors off opponents.

Then came the season opener. The Flyers took on a very solid Carolina team in a great game, with lots of back and forth action, and got power play goals from Carter and Richards in a 2-0 win. The next night against New Jersey, they shelled the legendary Martin Brodeur for 5 goals in a very well played 5-2 win. There were some discouraging signs-some dumb penalties here and there, some careless puck play-but overall they looked solid.

Then, came the home opener. They stumbled into a wild shootout with the Washington Capitals. Despite winning the game 6-5 in OT, the Flyers looked undisciplined and very sloppy. The next game was a rematch with the Penguins. Again, the Flyers shot themselves in the foot with alarming regularity, and had it not been for a late rally, and some uncharacteristically sloppy play by the Penguins, the 5-4 final might have opened more eyes.

The Flyers next game, against Anaheim, was a chance to wash the taste out of their mouths, and they did, for 50 minutes. Then, a familiar sight happened-instead of continuing to play the same aggressive forecheck that staked them to a 2-0 lead, the Flyers got conservative and played not to lose, rather than playing to close out the Ducks. The Ducks netted two goals in the last 7 minutes and won the game 3-2 in the shootout.

In the shootout, the Flyers used the same three guys they always use when healhty: Danny Briere, Mike Richards and Simon Gagne. I argue this, because it seems that all three tend to have a pet move on the shootout, particularly Gagne, and that they’re easy to stop in their predictability.

The Flyers then embarked on their team building exercizes and fishing trip in Florida, before Friday night’s abomination against the Panthers.

Due to the repeated issues with holding leads, not being able to muster consistent sixty minute efforts, repeated mistakes, such as poor decisions leading to turnovers, failed clearing attempts, bad penalties and most disturbing, a seeming acceptance of losing games like the Florida game, with a shrug and dismissing it as “just one loss” screams to me, that despite the many good things Stevens has done, that it’s time to change the head coach.

Some candidates I’d like to see:

Ted Nolan. Nolan has his negative points, mainly issues with management that seem to crop up whenever he leaves a job. Still the guy has a history of icing teams that never get outworked and always leave opposing teams knowing that if they managed to win, it was going to be a difficult night.

Peter Laviolette. Laviolette has a Stanley Cup on his resume, won with a team similar to the Flyers in make-up. Laviolette aslo has a history of icing teams that work hard and make life difficukt for opponents. He’s also got a reputation as guy who is a bit of a fire breather. Following the soft spoken Stevens, the attitude alone would at least be better press.

Brad McCrimmon. A sentimental choice for me. That is a Beast jersey I’m wearing in the picture.

Mike Keenan. Loose cannon? Yep. Serial goalie yo-yo artiste? Yep. Capable coach? Not even sure. But he will hold players accountable, and that is ultimately Stevens’ biggest fault.

Kevin Dineen. Like Stevens a former Flyers and successful AHL head coach, Dineen got everything he could from his ability during a solid NHL career. His father Bill was a hockey lifer and former Flyers scout and coach.

I am not saying that John Stevens is a bad coach. On the contrary, for a team with young players who need developing, he’d be a great fit. I just don’t feel Stevens is the right coach for the Flyers any longer, and that a change should be made sooner, rather than later.