Favorite Flyers Coaches in First Fifty Seasons

[Sawdalite]

With the speculation of John Stevens becoming the next LA Kings Head Coach, I decided to Poll the Flyer Faithful to determine their FAVORITE Flyers Head Coach of the half century... not necessarily who they believe to be the BEST... I'm asking for everyone to vote for up to five of their favorites, in order to better determine who falls where after the elite top few Coaches are determined. The more of Coaches you vote for, the better the results... so please vote for all five available selections, if possible.

There will be many factors that skew the Results, such as... Ages of the Members voting, length of years gone by since the Coaches coached, length of their service, their personalities, their associated other service with Team, life and death circumstances of Coaches, Wins/Accomplishments/Titles, etc. ... therefore, it is not an even playing field, and we understand that going in... Hopefully the Results will be interesting... and the discussions entertaining.

Here is a source of information with stats that may help you determine your selections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Philadelphia_Flyers_head_coaches

Click to read more...

 

[Rebels57]

Whoever voted for Hakstol in the top 5 is dead to me.

 

[FlyTimmo]

Whoever voted for Hakstol in the top 5 is dead to me.

I only voted for Hakstol. No other coaches matter.

1. Hakstol
2. Hakstol
3. Hakstol
4. Hakstol
5. Hakstol

 

[BillDineen]

Had to vote Bill Dineen.

 

[Sawdalite]

Whoever voted for Hakstol in the top 5 is dead to me.

I only voted for Hakstol. No other coaches matter.

1. Hakstol
2. Hakstol
3. Hakstol
4. Hakstol
5. Hakstol

Had to vote Bill Dineen.

This is certainly not going as expected.

 

[Chuck Downie]

I only voted for coaches I remember so I took Keenan, Hitchcock and Laviolette. I considered Neilson too.

 

[Chuck Downie]

Had to vote Bill Dineen.

Nice. I remember when he got the job and a big deal was made of how he finally got his chance.

 

[briererocks]

I loved lavi. Loved his passion and risk taking. Unfortunately we did not have the d to make his system work. We had it for one year with pronger and timmonen. Glad to see him doing well in Nashville.

 

[sabremike]

Nice. I remember when he got the job and a big deal was made of how he finally got his chance.

Best part was how Kevin found out: someone tells him the team has a new coach. He asks who? Your dad came the reply. Kevin was stunned. BTW Kevin Dineen is up there with Ron Francis as my all time hockey hero. Of the few big goals that were scored in Whalers history Kevin seemed to have almost all of them.

 

[Sawdalite]

I loved lavi. Loved his passion and risk taking. Unfortunately we did not have the d to make his system work. We had it for one year with pronger and timmonen. Glad to see him doing well in Nashville.

Pronger's unfortunate injury, IMO, greatly changed the course of the Organization... and with it, Lavi also.

 

[Chuck Downie]

Best part was how Kevin found out: someone tells him the team has a new coach. He asks who? Your dad came the reply. Kevin was stunned. BTW Kevin Dineen is up there with Ron Francis as my all time hockey hero. Of the few big goals that were scored in Whalers history Kevin seemed to have almost all of them.

That's awesome. I love stories like that.

 

[renberg]

That Sheroi isn't at the head of the list shows either that the guys on this site are young and never saw his teams or that there are a lot of people who don't know much about hockey.

 

[Rebels57]

That Sheroi isn't at the head of the list shows either that the guys on this site are young and never saw his teams or that there are a lot of people who don't know much about hockey.

Its the former, not the latter.

I personally never saw him coach a live game but I know how great he was so I felt compelled to still include him.

 

[sabremike]

Whoever voted for Hakstol in the top 5 is dead to me.

But you must admit their troll game is strong.

 

[Sawdalite]

That Sheroi isn't at the head of the list shows either that the guys on this site are young and never saw his teams or that there are a lot of people who don't know much about hockey.

If I were to guess, I'd think that people don't want to vote for a Coach whose Teams they never say play... When I decided to create the Poll, I went with 'favorite' rather than 'best', fully knowing that the Results would not be indicative of which Coaches were better than the others... I figured the older coaches would not do as well as they should... IMO the support for Lavi is not so unexpected due to the number of younger members of the Board. I see the current tally as showing the split between the older Fans and the younger Fans... with the older Fans voting for both the older and the newer Coaches, and the younger loading up on the more recent ones.

That said... I am surprised that Shero didn't gather 100% of the Votes for the early Coaches... especially when you could vote for five Coaches... But the again, it is asking for FAVORITE and not BEST... Maybe some older dudes just didn't like 'the Fog' for some odd reason.

On my personal votes I wrestled with voting for Keith 'the Thief'... I adored him as a GM, but while appreciating him in his brief Coaching stint before being bumped up, I just couldn't see giving him a vote as a Coach.

 

[Captain Dave Poulin]

I don't really like coaches in general, but I have liked four of ours.
Shero and Keenan were both obvious choices, and Quinn and Lavi were easy choices (for me).
Then for that fifth spot I decided to be honest and voted Stevens lol. I liked him for the most part and liked the fact that he was young, and thought he could have been a decent head coach eventually. My memory is **** though, and I don't remember why he failed or what his issues were - from reading some of the Kings fans reactions to his hiring, I am guessing it had something to do with "the inmates running the asylum" (which I think is what one of them said, and what thousands of Flyers fans have said about that period IIRC), but I was (as always) out of town and wasn't privy to that more gossipy kind of information.

 

[Ruck Over]

34 y/o

Voted Neilson, Hitchcock, & Lavi. Was going to include Murray, but he stifles youth and I don't forgive his accurate "choke' comment.

Only voted coaches i've seen perform (for the Flyers).

From Murray to Hitch, minus Neilson, there were a lot of bad coaches. I think Stevens is better than his time here, but he was too immature, with an immature roster. From Hitch forward, excluding Lavi, there have been some pretty bad coaches as well.

 

[Magua]

I voted Craig Berube because he looked lonely with his 0 votes. And his masterful coaching allowed us to get Provorov.

 

[Sawdalite]

I voted Craig Berube because he looked lonely with his 0 votes. And his masterful coaching allowed us to get Provorov.

... Did you consider Cashman also?

 

[WIP CALLER]

wasn't alive for Keenan or Shero so I went laviolette, Hitchcock, Murray, Nielsen, Ramsey. I didn't love Ramsey but I felt he really got screwed by the organization. Lavy is by far the number 1 in my lifetime, I loved everything about him. it's a shame he didn't adjust to his new crappy players because as we 're seeing now that when he has a decent team talent wise he really can get the best out of them. Loved how he actually looked like he gave a **** during the game compared to the last two morons.

 

[Embiid]

Terry Simpson....

The lowest of the low. Cash was pretty depressing as well

Voted for Iron Mike but I remember liking Neilson's stint for the most part. Hitch had a good run but he annoyed me. Lost Justin Williams because of the dude....

 

[Hockeypete49]

I only voted for Hakstol. No other coaches matter.

1. Hakstol
2. Hakstol
3. Hakstol
4. Hakstol
5. Hakstol

RIP rebelbully

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

I said Hitch, Stevens, and Lavy. Kind of a tough question since I wasn't around for the first 20 years of the franchise and probably didn't even really start paying attention to the coaches until the end of Hitchcock's tenure.

 

[Captain Dave Poulin]

Terry Simpson....

The lowest of the low. Cash was pretty depressing as well

Voted for Iron Mike but I remember liking Neilson's stint for the most part. Hitch had a good run but he annoyed me. Lost Justin Williams because of the dude....

If this were a list of Flyers coaches we disliked the most, he'd be #1 on mine, easily.
I couldn't stand him.

 

[BringBackHakstol]

I'm 30, the first coach i remember is Terry Murray in the mid-late 90's. Hitch and Lavi are my actual favorites, I remember liking Roger Nielsen very much as a person. Anyone remember when he chucked all of the sticks from the bench onto the ice after a bad call one time?

Then I included Murray even though I don't think he's anything special, he did make it to the cup in 1997.

Then finally, it felt criminal not to vote Shero even though he's way before my time.