Flyers name Alain Vigneault head coach

[Rich Nixon]

It's not that he necessarily stunts young players. If he likes you, it can be a good relationship.

If he decides he doesn't like you, you could be Sidney ****ing Crosby and he just doesn't like you. Again, the main theme is, once he makes a decision, he's right. It doesn't matter if it's 2+2=5. It doesn't matter how many times it's proven wrong on the ice.

Zibanejad, Buchnevich, and DeAngelo all showed massive improvement this year (Buchnevich later in the season after Quinn did some re-inventing). If AV were still coaching us, Zibanejad would still be playing third line minutes and Buchnevich and DeAngelo probably wouldn't be on the team at all. AV just didn't like them.

That's not to say all young players suffered -- Stepan, Kreider, Hayes, Miller, and Fast did well. Those were the guys AV decided he liked.

Buchnevich's usage was essentially unchanged between AV and Quinn, while Zibanajed did have a noteworthy season and a huge leap in icetime. Is there any possibility here that young players develop over time, and improved outputs from 2017-18 to 2018-19 were somewhat inevitable? Just probing here.

 

[Machinehead]

Buchnevich's usage was essentially unchanged between AV and Quinn, while Zibanajed did have a noteworthy season and a huge leap in icetime. Is there any possibility here that young players develop over time, and improved outputs from 2017-18 to 2018-19 were somewhat inevitable? Just probing here.

Buchnevich, if anything, had less usage earlier in the season. He was getting scratched.

Later on, after Quinn got through to him, he saw a leap in ice time and was playing the first line with Zibanejad.

Through the first 40 games, he had 17 shots on goal. In the final 42, he had 74 shots on goal. That's pretty much the adjustment we had to make.

It was drilled into his head to just stop shooting the puck because AV HATES shooting. Everything is about making ten passes and scoring the perfect goal. Buchnevich likes to shoot and that's why AV hated him. I can't say there isn't a method to it, or that it hasn't worked, because the Rangers scored a lot of goals under AV.

But if you have players -especially young players- who are volume shooters, they're not gonna have a place on your team.

 

[C0DITH]

Av is gonna have a roster stacked with skill and young players for his contract. There won't be any Tanner Glasses. AV is going to have young horses like Provorov/Ghost/Sanheim/Myers fueling his offense, a goalie who will probably have a Vezina to his name at some point in his career, Stars like Giroux/Couturier/JVR, and a young cast of forwards with Patrick/Konecny/Lindblom/Farabee/Frost.

Then throw in whatever the Flyers might want to buy (since they will have some nice cap space $$$).

AV will do just fine.

 

[Doctyl]

Av is gonna have a roster stacked with skill and young players for his contract. There won't be any Tanner Glasses. AV is going to have young horses like Provorov/Ghost/Sanheim/Myers fueling his offense, a goalie who will probably have a Vezina to his name at some point in his career, Stars like Giroux/Couturier/JVR, and a young cast of forwards with Patrick/Konecny/Lindblom/Farabee/Frost.

Then throw in whatever the Flyers might want to buy (since they will have some nice cap space $$$).

AV will do just fine.

Dude if you had Glass, Konecny wouldn’t play. The worst part about Tanner Glass isn’t Tanner Glass, it was the constant healthy scratching of Buchnevich.

 

[GordonGecko]

Yeah man, total shocker that a team without a single 60 point scorer didn't win the Cup. With superstars like Zucc, Stepan, old Brad Richards, and Brassard leading the way, that should have been a dynasty if AV didn't ruin it.

You can knock the Rangers all you want except that this was the same result as he had in Vancouver. The guy just can get it done, he chokes under pressure.

I'll tell you exactly how it's going to work in Philadelphia. AV is going to come in and implement his system. It's going to be hard at first and there's going to be 2-3 months of blah/losing then the team is going to start to click and do some amazing stuff. Probably make the playoffs and maybe win a round.

Then what basically happens is the league figures out the system and he has no answer. He will not counter and he's stubbornly going to stick to his ways and it's going to be a slow decline until he eventually gets fired and the Flyers keep getting knocked out in the playoffs for avoidable reasons.

 

[GordonGecko]

Oh, and your new team mascot is going to be a turtle.

 

[romba]

gl AV, loved his first couple of years with the Rangers. Looking forward to playing the Flyers and the man 2 man D system

 

[Machinehead]

People talk about AV's Rangers rosters like he was coaching the Oakland Seals.

Yeah, the teams had flaws like every team does, but in 2013-14 he had the defending Art Ross winner on his third line.

 

[Machinehead]

Oh, and your new team mascot is going to be a turtle.

Poor Gritty. He's getting the least gritty coach of all-time.

 

[Rich Nixon]

People talk about AV's Rangers rosters like he was coaching the Oakland Seals.

Yeah, the teams had flaws like every team does, but in 2013-14 he had the defending Art Ross winner on his third line.

Eh, he had a 38-year-old Martin St. Louis for 19 regular season games and a playoff run. MSL's Art Ross came in a lockout-shortened half-season playing alongside the Rocket winner. I agree that that Rangers team was, personnel-wise, a little better than people remembered, but "defending Art Ross winner on the third line" is an equally misleading representation of their depth.

 

[TheLegendkiller]

gl AV, loved his first couple of years with the Rangers. Looking forward to playing the Flyers and the man 2 man D system

I mean, we have the defensemen to play that system so...

 

[C0DITH]

People talk about AV's Rangers rosters like he was coaching the Oakland Seals.

Yeah, the teams had flaws like every team does, but in 2013-14 he had the defending Art Ross winner on his third line.

Super, a guy at the end of his career, wash ups like Rick Nash. Leading scorer was Zuccs with a savage 59 points. That team was straight ass and still was able to take it as far as they did. Giroux alone is better than anyone on that roster, period. He does well with good goalies, Lu / King.....and now he has Hart.

 

[Machinehead]

I mean, we have the defensemen to play that system so...

Yeah, you think you do.

Just wait until he decides he hates Gostisbehere and thinks Hagg is Nick Lidstrom.

 

[Kaapo Cabana]

Super, a guy at the end of his career, wash ups like Rick Nash. Leading scorer was Zuccs with a savage 59 points. That team was straight ass and still was able to take it as far as they did. Giroux alone is better than anyone on that roster, period. He does well with good goalies, Lu / King.....and now he has Hart.

don't forget this guy. We had him too

 

[StoneHands]

You can knock the Rangers all you want except that this was the same result as he had in Vancouver. The guy just can get it done, he chokes under pressure.

I'll tell you exactly how it's going to work in Philadelphia. AV is going to come in and implement his system. It's going to be hard at first and there's going to be 2-3 months of blah/losing then the team is going to start to click and do some amazing stuff. Probably make the playoffs and maybe win a round.

Then what basically happens is the league figures out the system and he has no answer. He will not counter and he's stubbornly going to stick to his ways and it's going to be a slow decline until he eventually gets fired and the Flyers keep getting knocked out in the playoffs for avoidable reasons.

I love the idea that he chokes under pressure just because he didn't win the Cup. He got a Rangers team to the Cup final that had no business being there. They came back from down 3-1 in the series against Pitt so I would say he adjusted but I'm sure you'll say that team with no stars won the games themselves. They then ran into a Kings team that was in the conference finals the year before and won the Cup the year before that. Sometimes the better team wins which LA clearly was.

He brought Vancouver to game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. They beat the defending champs that year in a game 7 (you'd think the league would have figured him out by year 5) and later ran into Thomas who was ridiculous that year winning the Vezina and Smythe. In game 6 Luongo was pulled in the first period after giving up 3 goals in 8 shots. That's not on AV. His team didn't exactly play poorly considering they outshot Boston 37-20 in game 7. Thomas stood on his head and Luongo **** the bed. At the time Luongo was labeled the choker because he gave up 6 goals on 28 shots in game 6 and 7 and didn't give his team a chance to win.

You can rewrite history to make it seem like it's on him any time they lose but he gets teams deep into the playoffs and at the end of the day, only one team can win the Cup. He took a Rangers team to the Cup for the first time in 20 years and a Nucks team to the Cup that hadn't been out of the 2nd round in 17 years. This is something 14 different coaches between those teams failed to do and he did it with both teams. If he gets the Flyers to game 7 of the SCF, I'll let the hockey gods take over from there. It certainly can't be worse than the crap we've been through with the last three coaches. I'm not saying he's a perfect coach but making it sound like AV is a terrible coach because he doesn't take over game 7 of the SCF from the bench is just weird to me.

 

[BrindamoursNose]

AV is an upgrade on Gordon and Hakstol.

That's really all that matters to me/the Flyers.

 

[EdmFlyersfan]

Exactly not sure why there is a bigger argument going on...this is the only fact of this hire so far.

AV is an upgrade on Gordon and Hakstol.

That's really all that matters to me/the Flyers.

 

[StoneHands]

AV is an upgrade on Gordon and Hakstol.

That's really all that matters to me/the Flyers.

People just love to find the negative in anything. I particularly laught at the comments about how much he's making and for how long. Who the hell cares if it doesn't count against the cap? It's being negative for the sake of being negative.

 

[Juicy Pop]

Yeah, you think you do.

Just wait until he decides he hates Gostisbehere and thinks Hagg is Nick Lidstrom.

So you're saying that we'll have a coach who doesn't instantly think this? AV sounds like an upgrade then.

 

[GordonGecko]

I love the idea that he chokes under pressure just because he didn't win the Cup. He got a Rangers team to the Cup final that had no business being there. They came back from down 3-1 in the series against Pitt

The team rallied around Martin St. Louis's sudden death of his mother to come back and take that series. They made it to the finals and AV's turtleing was a disaster

 

[Voight]

Yes, that's fair.

And we also led every game in LA and lost all of them because LA had him figured out before the series started and he refused to adjust.

The team overall wasnt that great tho. Yea you had Lundqvist but the forwards were nothing to write home about, I mean kind of hard to take home the cup if not even one player can manage 60 points. Outside of McDonagh (8th in Norris voting that year) the defence was nothing special.

Doesnt matter who the coach was, they werent going to beat LA.

& at the end of the day he did better than every coach since Keenan.

 

[StoneHands]

The team rallied around Martin St. Louis's sudden death of his mother to come back and take that series. They made it to the finals and AV's turtleing was a disaster

The excuses are beyond hilarious. Sure, the Rangers beat 3 other extremely motivated teams because they really like Martin St. Louis and then somehow AV sabotaged their rallying efforts but not until getting to the SCF. Zero credit to AV for bringing two teams out of mediocrity to the cusp of a Cup but all the blame when they lose.

 

[GordonGecko]

Zero credit to AV for bringing two teams out of mediocrity to the cusp of a Cup but all the blame when they lose.

As you will find out for yourself very shortly, it's pointless to have your team go that far and literally not be able to ever close the deal.

Enjoy!

 

[Hivemind]

I like AV as a coach quite a bit, but the fact he got more money and the same term as Barry Trotz (while Trotz was the reigning Cup champ) is absurd. I know Philadelphia is a franchise that isn't shy about spending Comcast's money, but it's still ridiculous.

 

[GordonGecko]

I like AV as a coach quite a bit, but the fact he got more money and the same term as Barry Trotz (while Trotz was the reigning Cup champ) is absurd. I know Philadelphia is a franchise that isn't shy about spending Comcast's money, but it's still ridiculous.

$25 million guaranteed contract for a coach that hasn't won anything. It makes no sense. AV must be bouncing off the walls right now, and Tanner Glass is definitely licking his chops