Early Monday, the news broke that the Philadelphia Flyers had fired coach Peter Laviolette after an 0-3 start to the season. Replacing him will be Craig Berube, who has been an assistant coach for the Flyers or head/assistant coach for the Phantoms since 2005-06. The Flyers’ effort in the first three games and preseason had been lackadaisical at best, and the Flyers decided to pull the trigger.

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Philadelphia - October 7, 2013 - Early Monday, the news broke that the Philadelphia Flyers had fired coach Peter Laviolette after an 0-3 start to the season. Replacing him will be Craig Berube, who has been an assistant coach for the Flyers or head/assistant coach for the Phantoms since 2005-06. The Flyers’ effort in the first three games and preseason had been lackadaisical at best, and the Flyers decided to pull the trigger.

At the press conference, the front office expressed confidence in the group of players that they had put together. Their collective talent is surely better than what they’ve shown in their first 3 games. A question was brought to Ed Snider about whether the Flyers could have benefitted from hiring someone from outside the organization to be coach instead of Berube, a long-time player and coach, and Snider got defensive.

Snider then exclaimed, “We don’t need a fresh perspective.” A look throughout the Flyers front office will find many former players, including Berube, Paul Holmgren, Ian Laperriere, Derian Hatcher, Riley Cote, and others. Many claim that the Flyers could use a fresh perspective, considering their roster still employs three “goons” in Rinaldo, Newbury, and Rosehill even as the designated fighter role has nearly disappeared from today’s NHL. That is another argument for a different article.

Since taking the Flyers to the Stanley Cup final in Laviolette’s first year in 2009-2010, the Flyers have been ousted in the second round and missed the playoffs. 2009-2010 was clearly the high point of Laviolette’s career as the Flyers coach.

To set up my analysis, some things need to be understood about Laviolette as a coach. He is known as a coach that is demanding of his players, requiring them to tailor their play to his system of coaching, which involves a quick-strike, attacking offense, and busting your tail on the backcheck. It requires a lot of skating, and strong endurance for Laviolette’s system to work. The other thing about Laviolette is that his style can be abrasive to some players. Laviolette’s style is not conducive to developing young players into quality NHL players. For Laviolette’s style to work, he needs disciplined, veteran NHL players that will play his system, not young players who are still learning the nuances of playing in the big show and fine tuning their games.

Flashback to June 2006, and you will see that the Carolina Hurricanes, led by Peter Laviolette, were the Stanley Cup Champions. A cursory look at their roster reveals a team laden with grizzled, proven NHL veterans like Rod Brind’Amour, Glen Wesley, Bret Hedican, Mark Recchi, and Doug Weight, all over 35 at the time. Riding the hot goaltending of rookie playoff sensation Cam Ward, the Hurricanes overcame their seemingly no-name defense to defeat the Edmonton Oilers in 7 games to win the cup. The average age of that team was 28.5 years old.

Move forward four years to June of 2010, and the Flyers have lost in the Stanley Cup finals to the Chicago Blackhawks. Had the Flyers had a true NHL caliber goaltender, there is a good chance they win that series. The average age of that Flyers team was 27.48 years old. Not as old as the Canes squad, but still a fairly experienced squad. One important note is that a few of the biggest contributors to that team, namely Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, and Claude Giroux were relatively young at 24, 24, and 22 respectively. But, they had been developed well, receiving big minutes young in their careers under the tutelage of John Stevens.

The next season, coming off a very long, arduous season the year before, the Flyers were swept out of the playoffs in the second round by the Bruins, a squad determined to get revenge for their embarrassing collapse the year before. That summer, everything changed. Franchise cornerstones Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, both of whom had recently signed 12 year contracts, were traded to the Kings and Blue Jackets respectively. In return the Flyers received Wayne Simmonds, Brayden Schenn, Jakub Voracek, the picks that turned into Sean Couturier and Nick Cousins, and a pick that was used to acquire Nicklas Grossmann.

There is no doubting the amount of raw talent that the Flyers received in return for Richards and Carter. At the time, Schenn was viewed as the best prospect in hockey, coming off an absurd 18 point performance at the World Juniors the winter before. The team had gotten much younger, and depth replenished with additional cap savings as well. The cost was that the Flyers would essentially have to repeat the impressive job they did developing Richards and Carter into premiere, two-way first line centers with Schenn and Couturier. After all, the conditions were pretty much the same right? They did it just a few years ago, both have high pedigrees and lots of success in juniors, and a star center (for Richards and Carter it was Briere, and for Schenn and Couturier it was Giroux) to take the pressure off of them.

There is one big difference between Richards’ and Carter’s successful development, and the rocky road that Schenn and Couturier have had so far: their coach. Enter John Stevens, the man Laviolette replaced in 2009-2010. Stevens coached Richards and Carter in the 2004-2005 AHL playoffs, where they joined the Phantoms after impressive junior seasons, and led the team to a Calder Cup championship. Stevens was the man who replaced Ken Hitchcock, a coach very similar to Laviolette, who preaches defensive discipline and a strong team game. Stevens coached the team through most of 2006-07, the next two seasons, and the beginning of 2009-2010. The team had a moderate amount of playoff success, making the eastern conference finals one year, and losing in the first round the next. Most importantly, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter blossomed under Stevens’ tutelage. Despite the constant criticism that Stevens received about his lack of a system and loosey-goosey hockey the Flyers played in that time span, Richards and Carter had the best seasons of their career under him. The players loved playing for Stevens, and he was a strong mentor to them. Richards and Carter haven’t come close to matching the production they had under Stevens since.

By 2009-2010, it became clear that the Flyers’ young players no longer needed a mentor, they needed a coach. They acquired an elite #1 defenseman in Chris Pronger in the offseason, and after they fired Stevens, the team went on a tear and nearly won the cup.

Since the two franchise-shaking moves, the Flyers have struggled. Young players like Giroux, Read, JVR, Simmonds, Voracek, Brayden Schenn, Couturier, and Luke Schenn were given huge roles on the team, and the system fell apart. Some performed better than others, but as a group they lacked the veteran knowledge about playing in the NHL and adhering to a system. For their entire careers, they had been told to score goals because they were the best at it. They reached the NHL, and all of a sudden they weren’t the best at scoring, and it was clear that their game away from the puck was lacking.

Paul Holmgren handed Peter Laviolette a set of square pegs, and Laviolette tried to fit them into circle-shaped holes. The young players lacked the experience, knowledge, and discipline to play within Laviolette’s system, and Laviolette was not the kind of coach that could teach them the skills they needed. He was doomed to fail when Holmgren traded away the two franchise cornerstones. The result was what Flyers fans saw the first three games, a team that stopped responding to their coach, and had what Ed Snider called the worst preseason he’d seen of any Flyers team in their 47 years of existence.

Even though Laviolette was dealt a set of cards that didn't fit his plans, he cannot be absolved of all the blame. Particularly against the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils, he failed to make any in-game adjustments to adjust to their hard two-man forecheck. John Tortorella and Peter DeBoer outcoached him on a regular basis in important head-to-head matchups. They would send in two men hard on the forecheck, and the Flyers defense struggled mightily to break the puck out. Instead of having the forwards sink lower to support the defense on the breakout, Laviolette stuck with his system that clearly wasn't working, and the result was a multitude of turnovers in the defensive zone and an inability to break the puck out effectively.

Those problems were compounded when Chris Pronger suffered a career-ending injury, and the severely underrated Matt Carle left via free agency while Holmgren was fixated on signing Ryan Suter. None of their puck-moving ability and breakout prowess was replaced by new acquisitions, and the result was the sixth worst even strength team in the NHL last year. Most of that is on Holmgren, but part of it is still on Laviolette for not making adjustments to accommodate the talent he was given.

The similarities to 2006-07 are striking. A team that many predicted would be a playoff contender starts off terribly, fires their system-oriented, rigid coach, and hires a familiar face that the players love and admire. Can Craig Berube be “John Stevens” to Couturier and Schenn like Stevens was to Richards and Carter? If you ask me, that’s the biggest thing that this firing could change. The defense is what it is, immobile and aging. The goaltending still appears to be a question mark, although Steve Mason has played well so far.

Berube and Stevens are not exactly the same, however. All indications are that the players are willing to fight tooth and nail for Berube like they were for Stevens, but Berube has a much more in-your-face approach. If you aren’t meeting the expectations that Berube has for you, he has no qualms about sitting you down on the bench, whether you’re Claude Giroux or Jay Rosehill.

Very rarely do you find a coach that can develop young talent, but also effectively integrate them into their system at the same time. The coaches that do that are the all-time greats. Can Berube do both? My gut says no, I see him as a more intense John Stevens that will help develop the younger players on the team, but not necessarily be able to implement the systems necessary to take the team from talented to a cup contender. Look for more analysis on Berube in my next article.