Flyers name Alain Vigneault head coach

[KirkAlbuquerque]

As a NYR fan, I never hated AV like so many here, until his last season. But I don't blame him for our decline. And in 2014 and 2015 i thought he was a great coach, you just have to have the right type of players for his system because he will not make adjustments to it.

 

[TheKingPin]

flyers have E L I T E D E F E N S E*

Well yes they will in a few years. That doesn’t count for the plan to get a top pair dman this offseason.

 

[TheKingPin]

As a NYR fan, I never hated AV like so many here, until his last season. But I don't blame him for our decline. And in 2014 and 2015 i thought he was a great coach, you just have to have the right type of players for his system because he will not make adjustments to it.

Basically no coaches make adjustments in their time with a team. If they did, you’d see a lot more panicking and pulling that trigger too early. A few coaches can adapt between jobs like torts. We will see if AV does. He said all the right stuff in that vein during his presser. Bottom line is, these players need to learn to play hockey. Bc they haven’t for a very long time.

 

[bigdog16]

Plain and simple, the ranger never had that good a team. That’s a pretty bad top 6. They have no elite level player. The flyers have one of the better top 6s in the league. With a guy like frost and adding a 2C they could have a very good 12 forward group. Their D is young and very promising. They are also are looking to add there. And one of the most promising young goalies in the league. Another major difference here is the young talent coming in. The rangers had none. They didn’t even have a forst rounder for awhile. Its not unusual to have things go south in 3 years with contracts increasing and no cheap young talent.

Won the Presidents trophy in 2015, and had 100+ pts the following 2 seasons. I would consider that to be a good team

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Won the Presidents trophy in 2015, and had 100+ pts the following 2 seasons. I would consider that to be a good team

or maybe that just means AV is a great coach ?

 

[TheKingPin]

Won the Presidents trophy in 2015, and had 100+ pts the following 2 seasons. I would consider that to be a good team

Thats a good team. But it’s not as good a roster. AV seemed to elevate the fans expectations given his results despite the lack of talent. Ranger fans wanted this and that done that AV wasn’t doing, but they just didnt have the talent. And the rookies that were mistreated in NY as well as Vancouver turned out to be what AV thought, again overvalued by ranger fans.

And no coach is coming here to play the vets. The flyers have one of the younger teams in the NHL and could get even more young players next year.

 

[Teezax]

Get used to seeing them chase people everywhere and leave the net front completely empty.

We've been seeing that for years...

 

[bigdog16]

or maybe that just means AV is a great coach ?

He was great his first year, I won't deny that. It slowly went downhill. And by the end he literally didn't even care. Never took a lick of the blame either, was always pointing fingers. That's what left a sour taste in most fan's mouths.

Thats a good team. But it’s not as good a roster. AV seemed to elevate the fans expectations given his results despite the lack of talent. Ranger fans wanted this and that done that AV wasn’t doing, but they just didnt have the talent. And the rookies that were mistreated in NY as well as Vancouver turned out to be what AV thought, again overvalued by ranger fans.

And no coach is coming here to play the vets. The flyers have one of the younger teams in the NHL and could get even more young players next year.

Can't say Ive ever heard someone say that the Presidents trophy winner didn't have a good roster and lacked talent, that's a new one. Just wait, I'm telling you. Its not all roses with AV.

 

[EEDAWGZ]

Who did that happen to? I keep asking for examples of things AV did and I get zero answers. I was told that a bunch of guys regressed from year to year under AV but the stats don't back it up and I go no response. I asked what scrubs were getting more ice time than the teams best players. Silence. I'm not saying I don't believe Rangers fans on their assessment of AV but whenever I ask for examples or to back up claims I get nothing.

He completely neutered Chris Krieder , and Dan Carcillo , Not his style to play a physical game , and that’s fine ,some people like pacifists Hockey, not me , nobody has to prove anything to you , AV is so smug it’s almost guaranteed he’ll do same thing all over again and you’ll see for yourself

 

[romba]

I'm a Rangers fan but I feel ya here

 

[Tripod]

He completely neutered Chris Krieder , and Dan Carcillo , Not his style to play a physical game , and that’s fine ,some people like pacifists Hockey, not me , nobody has to prove anything to you , AV is so smug it’s almost guaranteed he’ll do same thing all over again and you’ll see for yourself

Well darn...neutered Carcillo. What ever will we do.



We know he is not perfect. No coach is. All we are saying is that he is a very big improvement on whet we have been dealing with.

Again, AV has 2 SCF appearances his last 10 years coaching. His teams also tend to break 100 points and he has 9 playoff appearances in those 10 years. It took Trotz 13 years to get to the SCF. Some were saying he could not lead a team to victory before last year.

This firing should absolutely be a step in the right direction. And I personally expect to hate some decisions, but if we are winning, so be it. And like every coach, if he has not won enough in 3-4 years, he is fired.

 

[BernieParent]

Probably because they gave away McDonagh and J.T. Miller for free basically, got not replacement for Nash and traded Grabner. Then the firesale of Hayes and Zuccarello this year, all gone. That's six core players gone and not replaced, that might have something to do with it. Girardi was bought out. He's in a steep decline, but the NYR defense trying to play Vigneault's system was horrific to watch, it barely looked like they could play hockey. Especially Girardi and Staal suffered greatly from it, as they can't skate like the wind, more of the opposite.

They still played better hockey with this butchered team than Vigneault managed them to do before the butchering began. One of the revelations the new coach implemented was to play his best players more than the scrubs. Vigneault loves playing his favourite scrubs, a lot.

Philly fans will soon see what it means when Vigneault coaches. I'll give it a love affair of one season, then the criticism will pour in. Perhaps not even that if they quickly get up to speed how Vigneault wants to "defend". Or the screams why Giroux and those kind of guys are on the bench, while chasing a lead, while the scrubs are the ones to apparently get the equalizer.

You'll see.

What is this "sys-tum" of which you are speaking?

I am about 10 degrees north of meh for Vigneault, but it makes me chuckle about the doom prophecies to which Flyers fans have bitterly become accustomed. Playing vets over high-level prospects? Check. Suppress team emotion? Check. Defensive breakdowns like clockwork? Checkorico. It will be a big step up to see something approaching an offensive strategy that doesn't involve lobbing the puck out to 3 forwards standing flat-footed around center ice. Or a dump-and-don't-chase approach.

Vigneault may be awful. But he's very likely a different kind of awful, he has some success on his resume, and he said a whole lot of things that aligned well with the roster he is taking over. Risk is guaranteed; we'll see where this risk takes a team that is the epitome of mediocrity and less than the sum of its parts.

 

[Chimpradamus]

What is this "sys-tum" of which you are speaking?

I am about 10 degrees north of meh for Vigneault, but it makes me chuckle about the doom prophecies to which Flyers fans have bitterly become accustomed. Playing vets over high-level prospects? Check. Suppress team emotion? Check. Defensive breakdowns like clockwork? Checkorico. It will be a big step up to see something approaching an offensive strategy that doesn't involve lobbing the puck out to 3 forwards standing flat-footed around center ice. Or a dump-and-don't-chase approach.

Vigneault may be awful. But he's very likely a different kind of awful, he has some success on his resume, and he said a whole lot of things that aligned well with the roster he is taking over. Risk is guaranteed; we'll see where this risk takes a team that is the epitome of mediocrity and less than the sum of its parts.

It's especially the defensive breakdowns like clockwork that is the real problem. Sure, his other weird decisions don't help, but when you systematically allow your opponent to leave a guy completely alone in front of the net on the weak side the most of any teams (yes, NYR was the worst), you have a huge problem. Not only is it always a great quality scoring chance, it's really tough for the goalie to handle. That's a systematical flaw in his defensive system that cannot be overlooked. His offense is fine and dandy if you have the lead. If you don't, you're basically screwed and he has no alternative to always wanting the counter-rush.

Other coaches do what Vigneault wants, only much better and better thought out. Like a team as Vegas. But sure, there is a chance he's had the time to contemplate how his system turned into a dumpster fire and has stopped blaming everything and everyone but himself. Flyers better hope for Vigneault 2.0, because in New York, his "coaching" was unacceptable.

A good coach adapts his game with the players he has. Vigneault tried to force square blocks through a round hole and continued to blame the blocks until he was fired. It was baffling to watch, honestly.

 

[StoneHands]

He completely neutered Chris Krieder , and Dan Carcillo , Not his style to play a physical game , and that’s fine ,some people like pacifists Hockey, not me , nobody has to prove anything to you , AV is so smug it’s almost guaranteed he’ll do same thing all over again and you’ll see for yourself

If the biggest complaints about AV are that he didn't utilize 4th line goon Dan Carcillo correctly in his half a season in NY and he didn't let Kreider hit enough then I think we're at the very least better off with AV over Hakstol and Gordon. By the way, Kreider averaged 2.01 hits per game under AV and this year he averaged...you guessed it, 2.01 hits per game under a new coach. I know he has his flaws, I'm not ignoring what fans of his previous teams say but so far I've been told that a bunch of core players got progressively worse over the 5 years AV was there (They didn't) and that Kreider wasn't allowed to be physical and that didn't happen either.

 

[C0DITH]

So by all accounts you need to have a stellar goalie (Carter Hart) Check
You need mobile defensemen (Provorov/Ghost/Sanheim/Myers) Check
And you need to not have a bunch of aging vets like the Rangers have plugged their rosters with for a decade (CHECK).

Alright, ECF here we come!

 

[StoneHands]

So by all accounts you need to have a stellar goalie (Carter Hart) Check
You need mobile defensemen (Provorov/Ghost/Sanheim/Myers) Check
And you need to not have a bunch of aging vets like the Rangers have plugged their rosters with for a decade (CHECK).

Alright, ECF here we come!

To be fair, the Rangers core (if you want to call it that) has been pretty young going back as far as the SCF appearance.

 

[1865]

He was great his first year, I won't deny that. It slowly went downhill. And by the end he literally didn't even care. Never took a lick of the blame either, was always pointing fingers. That's what left a sour taste in most fan's mouths.



Can't say Ive ever heard someone say that the Presidents trophy winner didn't have a good roster and lacked talent, that's a new one. Just wait, I'm telling you. Its not all roses with AV.

How could we possibly be allowed to think it was all roses? You Rangers fans haven't stopped crowing since he was appointed.

 

[bigdog16]

How could we possibly be allowed to think it was all roses? You Rangers fans haven't stopped crowing since he was appointed.

Everyone who has responded to me thinks it will be all roses, actually

 

[NinjaKick]

He'll likely get them into the playoffs and maybe even potentially deeper into there, that isn't the issue.

i'm sorry what?
oh right players like Kreider, Buchnevich, and.... sexy superstar Dan Carcillo... were neutered by AV... meanwhile Kreider had his best season under AV... Buch is going to be 25 and just put up 38 points this season... Carcillo... I don't know where he is... what did you guys want out of that player?...

And you clearly haven't read the posts, the Rangers sold off a lot of their core players after AV left. That's why they mainly suck(ed) now.

I've read the entire thread.... not a whole lot of positive things said about AV from "other" fans, only excuses to why they suck moose balls now...

if AV was holding the Rangers back and "neutering players"... why have they only been worse and like you said... why did they sell of the core when he left?... going by this thread, that make's no sense.. they should have only gotten better when he left....

I'm; not gonna be surprised if Philly looks like a new team under AV.... he's proven that if you give him a decent team with depth... you'll be in the playoffs... after the season Philly just had...I think Philly fans will be content with that

 

[StoneHands]

Everyone who has responded to me thinks it will be all roses, actually

It's hard to not be skeptical when Flyers fans keep asking for specific examples of things AV did that you can actually prove or show us and we just keep getting the run around and "you'll see". A lot has been that he's smug and arrogant which I don't necessarily deny but then we've also been told that the core players in NY progressively got worse from year to year under AV but it's been shown that it's statistically untrue and nobody has soon a boon in production since AV left. I was told that he "neutered" Kreider and wouldn't allow physical play from him but it's been proven that he had no more hits this season under a new coach than he did under AV. I've been told that he choked in 2011 with Vancouver because they were up 3-2 in the series and couldn't close it out. No mention of Luongo getting pulled 8 minutes into game 6 and digging his team a 3-0 hole or losing game 7 because Thomas came to play and Luongo didn't (shots were 37-21 in favor of Vancouver). Everyone says he destroyed the Rangers over the course of his 5 years but it's hard to put the blame solely on him when the team he ruined was a team that made it to the SCF without a 60 point scorer or a 30 goal scorer. Did you ever think that maybe they overachieved for a couple years before the lack of talent pulled them back to Earth? That's not to say that those Ranger teams were bad, they were good, just not Stanley Cup good. I don't think any Flyers fan thinks he's a perfect coach, if he was he would have been coaching this year. I think we're just tired of hearing how terrible he is despite taking two teams to the SCF who hadn't been there is a long time before he arrived. Zero credit for that but all the blame when things went south.

 

[Rangerfan4life90]

i'm sorry what?
oh right players like Kreider, Buchnevich, and.... sexy superstar Dan Carcillo... were neutered by AV... meanwhile Kreider had his best season under AV... Buch is going to be 25 and just put up 38 points this season... Carcillo... I don't know where he is... what did you guys want out of that player?...

I've read the entire thread.... not a whole lot of positive things said about AV from "other" fans, only excuses to why they suck moose balls now...

if AV was holding the Rangers back and "neutering players"... why have they only been worse and like you said... why did they sell of the core when he left?... going by this thread, that make's no sense.. they should have only gotten better when he left....

I'm; not gonna be surprised if Philly looks like a new team under AV.... he's proven that if you give him a decent team with depth... you'll be in the playoffs... after the season Philly just had...I think Philly fans will be content with that

What on earth are you talking about? The rebuild and selling of the core started even when AV was here his last year or 2. It was gonna happen with or without him due to the state of the team.

You're not a Rangers fan that has seen pretty much every game of AV coaching, so there's really no use fully explaining it to you, but here are some tidbits that make him flawed.

1) Playing Tanner Glass over better players constantly. Wouldn't shock me at all if the Flyers sign Tanner Glass soon. We would joke that Glass must secretly be AV's son.

2) Not playing his best players consistently (breath of fresh air in the coach we have now in Quinn, who actually plays his best players regularly)

3) Not adjusting. He'll live and die by his own thought process, everything be damned. That's why we coin him "stubborn as a mule."

4) His coaching in the Ottawa playoff series two years ago literally lost the Rangers the series. I've never seen a more horrendous coaching job in a series than that one. A slightly better coach would have probably won that series. After that series, I for sure wanted him gone. The Rangers core was going downhill, but they still had a bit of steam left for a potential run.

5) Not his fault, of course, but having two elite goalies in Luongo and Lundqvist certainly didn't hurt

6) He basically got worse and worse every season.

Some pros. He has a very good offensive mind and will help improve the Flyers and maybe even get them into the playoffs and make a deep run. But just be warned at his flaws and don't be surprised if he gets worse and worse every season.

Like I said, I don't think he's entirely a bad coach, but he most definitely has flaws that Flyer fans will likely eventually see.

 

[Rangerfan4life90]

It's hard to not be skeptical when Flyers fans keep asking for specific examples of things AV did that you can actually prove or show us and we just keep getting the run around and "you'll see". A lot has been that he's smug and arrogant which I don't necessarily deny but then we've also been told that the core players in NY progressively got worse from year to year under AV but it's been shown that it's statistically untrue and nobody has soon a boon in production since AV left. I was told that he "neutered" Kreider and wouldn't allow physical play from him but it's been proven that he had no more hits this season under a new coach than he did under AV. I've been told that he choked in 2011 with Vancouver because they were up 3-2 in the series and couldn't close it out. No mention of Luongo getting pulled 8 minutes into game 6 and digging his team a 3-0 hole or losing game 7 because Thomas came to play and Luongo didn't (shots were 37-21 in favor of Vancouver). Everyone says he destroyed the Rangers over the course of his 5 years but it's hard to put the blame solely on him when the team he ruined was a team that made it to the SCF without a 60 point scorer or a 30 goal scorer. Did you ever think that maybe they overachieved for a couple years before the lack of talent pulled them back to Earth? I don't think any Flyers fan thinks he's a perfect coach, if he was he would have been coaching this year. I think we're just tired of hearing how terrible he is despite taking two teams to the SCF who hadn't been there is a long time before he arrived.

A lot of us Ranger fans said the same thing to Vancouver fans when we hired AV, lol. AV will improve your team, I don't doubt that. But just know that he has an expiration date, sooner rather than later.

 

[NinjaKick]

that's great, he was the Rangers coach for a long time and came close to a cup... you all act like AV is the worst coach ever... we'll see if Philly makes the playoffs this season... which is what matters... and going by this years 1st round of the playoffs... if you make the playoffs, anything can happen...
who gives a shit about 3 or 4 years from now... if AV is a problem, you bring him into your office, offer him tea and rice crispy squares... and then fire his b*tch ass

 

[Archijerej]

He is, without a doubt, one of the best coaches in the business. Flyers fans should feel very lucky.

 

[bigdog16]

It's hard to not be skeptical when Flyers fans keep asking for specific examples of things AV did that you can actually prove or show us and we just keep getting the run around and "you'll see". A lot has been that he's smug and arrogant which I don't necessarily deny but then we've also been told that the core players in NY progressively got worse from year to year under AV but it's been shown that it's statistically untrue and nobody has soon a boon in production since AV left. I was told that he "neutered" Kreider and wouldn't allow physical play from him but it's been proven that he had no more hits this season under a new coach than he did under AV. I've been told that he choked in 2011 with Vancouver because they were up 3-2 in the series and couldn't close it out. No mention of Luongo getting pulled 8 minutes into game 6 and digging his team a 3-0 hole or losing game 7 because Thomas came to play and Luongo didn't (shots were 37-21 in favor of Vancouver). Everyone says he destroyed the Rangers over the course of his 5 years but it's hard to put the blame solely on him when the team he ruined was a team that made it to the SCF without a 60 point scorer or a 30 goal scorer. Did you ever think that maybe they overachieved for a couple years before the lack of talent pulled them back to Earth? That's not to say that those Ranger teams were bad, they were good, just not Stanley Cup good. I don't think any Flyers fan thinks he's a perfect coach, if he was he would have been coaching this year. I think we're just tired of hearing how terrible he is despite taking two teams to the SCF who hadn't been there is a long time before he arrived. Zero credit for that but all the blame when things went south.

He coaches soft, his teams turn soft over time. Going from an in your face coach like Torts to AV, it was pretty easy to see. AV ripped Kreider to media for stepping up to Stamkos when he cheapshotted McD. JT and Skjei both regressed with him at the helm. The d-zone is an absolute disaster, a common theme with all of AV’s teams. He played Girardi and Staal in the final minute of games, where we would often end up scored on (2 of the worst dmen statistically in the league). And he doesn’t believe in analytics whatsoever. So, if thats who you want in charge so be it. Wouldnt trust him with a promising group of youngsters in Philly tho