Add Gordon to that list. His 20-11-4 over the last 35 games is going to count in the equation for the next Flyers head coach. You and I may not like it but its out there. Now perhaps the Flyers run out of gas and don't make the POs and that sinks Gordon's ship but his record with the club is considerable especially since he didn't have the preseason to work with the guys and he took over a club that really was a mess.
Would I want Q? Sure but so will other clubs. For whatever reason he may like the opportunities that exist elsewhere better than what is here.
No on Boudreau or Boucher.
Lavy is a thinker; not sure about him. His pressure offense is good. However if he can't do well in Nashville with the defense that is there, I'm not so sure that he'd be a good fit here.
Add McClellan to that list. His record in Edmonton was not good but who could do well in that grease fire. Before that he had done well.
While we have gone on a nice win streak, it is a win streak that we are all currently very familiar with. I don't think there is anything unique or special about gordon in relation to the streak but rather this seems to be a theme of this group of flyers. The underlying numbers during this winning streak are not impressive at all. We are winning , but we are by the skin on our teeth. We are frequently getting outshot and outplayed.
Gordon has done a better job of usage of talent. Sanheim's toi has gone up and hagg's has gone down. Simple things like that makes a team more efficient but in regards to systems this team is playing at a level inferior to what we were with Hak. Don't get me wrong both coaches suck but for different reasons. Surprisingly if you could combine concepts from the two you would have pretty good results.
Basically this is what happeened this year. When Hextall was fired we were 4 points away from a playoff spot despite having no stability in goal and unsustainable bad luck on special teams. Also coots was off to a slow start from injury. Yet in spite of this we were only 4 points away from a playoff spot, we have yet to be that close again.
So as bad as things seemed at the time, they were never truly that bad when looking at it from a reasonable perspective. We were bound to go on a run once we got more stable goalie play, and better special teams. What hurt us was when Hextall was fired, and hakstol was basically a lame duck coach for 2 weeks before he was fired, followed by implementing gordon where we fell off the map for a while there and were the worst team in the league. Since January 13th we have had the best record in nhl , however since gordon's transition in the beginning was so disastrous we still are not playoff bound.
I firmly believe had hexy not been fired we would be in a current playoff spot with the current group. That may be a good thing, it may be a bad thing. Now with gordon and fletcher at the helm I am so in fear of what the future holds. I don't think we have a realistic shot of winning with this management group .
If you combine hak's system, with gordon's usage and goalie usage i think that is the best combo to hope for.