"Right from Day 1 of training camp I was
concerned about how the team looked," Holmgren said. "We
have a long way to go in terms of the season, but it was more about
how we played, and it was unacceptable. We don't look like a team at
all. It just came to that point where I had a gut feeling on my part
where I felt we needed a change."
It was less than a month ago that team chairman Ed
Snider had given Laviolette a vote of confidence.
"As far as Peter is concerned, last year
was an anomaly," Snider told reporters on Sept. 13. "He's
been a very good coach for us, he's been a good coach in this League,
and we're just thrilled to have him."
However, Snider said Monday that he had his issues
with the team's 1-5-1 preseason, as well as the winless start to the
regular season.
"Training camp was a disaster,"
he said. "I've been at 47 training camps and I've never seen
one that I thought was worse. Now that's not talking about Peter,
that's talking about our players. And it carried right on over to the
first three games of the season."
Holmgren said he had plans to meet with the
players Monday afternoon and that they would be held accountable as
well. "I'm not going to let the players off the hook,"
he said. "Things have to get better and they will.""
Berube was in his seventh season as an assistant
coach with the Flyers, including the last six on the staffs of John
Stevens and Laviolette. "I'm excited about the
opportunity to have Craig coach the Philadelphia
Flyers," Holmgren said. "Craig is one of the
smartest guys I've ever been around. He demands respect, he holds
people accountable and he's a no-B.S. kind of guy. I'm looking
forward to Craig taking over the team."
Berube's first game will be Tuesday, when the
Flyers host the Florida
Panthers. This is Berube's first chance as an NHL head coach. His
only other experience as a head coach came in parts of two seasons
with the Flyers' American Hockey League team, the Philadelphia
Phantoms, in 2006-07 and 2007-08, in which he went a combined
52-30-8. Berube said his first task would be improving the team's
defense. In the first three games, the Flyers allowed nine goals.
"I believe that we need to play better
without the puck," Berube said. "When you play good
hockey without the puck, the team comes together and you do the right
things to get the puck back and you keep the puck out of your net.
Right now we need to stress that and do a better job of it. We need
to take pride in it."
The roster Berube inherits hasn't played well with
or without the puck. The team has three goals in three games, but
only one at even-strength. The top line of Claude
Giroux, Scott
Hartnell and Jakub
Voracek has combined for zero points and a minus-2 rating, while
Wayne
Simmonds, Matt
Read and Sean
Couturier also have been held off the score sheet.
"We're just not playing the way we have to
play," Holmgren said. "We're not playing well enough
to win in the National Hockey League, and that has to change. Whether
it's fresh ideas or a new voice, I'm not going to sit here and try to
pinpoint that. That's up to Craig. That's his job. But I didn't like
the direction that the team was heading, and I felt we needed a
change."
It's the second straight season the Flyers have
opened 0-3-0, and the fourth time in club history. Berube said he and
the rest of the coaching staff could sense something not quite right
with the team during training camp and through the preseason games.
"We didn't play very well in preseason,
whether you have a full lineup or not," Berube said. "We
just didn't see the competiveness and the team-oriented play that's
needed on a nightly basis to win hockey games. Sometimes players
think that they are playing hard enough and they're not, … Every
player is accountable to his teammates, that's basically what it
boils down to. You've got to be accountable to your teammates and
play hard."
Laviolette's firing three games into a season is
the earliest a coaching change has been made since Fred Glover was
let go by the California Seals three games into the 1971-72 season.
Holmgren said any thought to firing Laviolette last season in the
wake of the club's 10th-place finish in the Eastern Conference were
"fleeting." He said he hoped the offseason additions of
center Vincent
Lecavalier, defenseman Mark
Streit and goalie Ray
Emery would advance the strong finish the club had to last
season, when it went 6-1-0 in the final seven games.
"I like Peter," Holmgren said. "I
think that he deserved another opportunity. We made some changes in
the summer that got us all excited. … I think it was the right
thing to do at the time. Start training camp, start the year with
Peter. I just didn’t like what I was seeing. It was a gut
decision."
Laviolette was hired Dec. 4, 2009, and in parts of
five seasons went 145-98-29. When he opened this season as coach, he
joined Fred
Shero as the only men in club history to coach the Flyers for a
fifth season. Shero lasted seven seasons and won the only Stanley
Cups in Flyers history, in 1974 and 1975. Laviolette went 23-22 in
the Stanley Cup Playoffs, topped by the team's trip to the 2010
Stanley Cup Final. However, they missed the playoffs last season, the
first time that had happened since 2007. In 12 seasons as an NHL
coach with the New
York Islanders, Hurricanes and Flyers, Laviolette is 389-282-88.
He guided the Hurricanes to the 2006 Stanley Cup. He also will serve
as an assistant coach for the United States at the 2014 Winter
Olympics. Berube started his NHL career with the Flyers in 1986-87
season and was a rookie on the team that lost to the Edmonton
Oilers in the 1987 Stanley Cup Final. In six seasons in two
different stints as a player with the Flyers, he had 58 points and
1,138 penalty minutes in 323 games. He played 17 seasons in all, with
the Flyers, Toronto
Maple Leafs, Calgary
Flames, Washington
Capitals and New
York Islanders, totaling 159 points in 1,054 games. He ranks
seventh in League history with 3,149 penalty minutes. Paddock has
been with the Flyers in various roles since 2008, when he was hired
as coach of the team's AHL club. He had been an assistant general
manager and worked on Laviolette's staff last season; he was shifted
into his current role after Ron
Hextall was hired as an assistant GM in July. Paddock previously
served as head coach of the Winnipeg
Jets (1991-95) and Ottawa
Senators (2007-08), and has been an assistant coach at the NHL
level with the Senators (2005-07) Laperriere had been in his second
season as the club's director of player development after announcing
his retirement as a player in the summer of 2012 due to concussion
issues. This will be the first time he has coached at any
professional level.
"John Paddock has been around forever,"
Berube said. "He was actually my first pro coach in Hershey
(1986-87). He's a very smart guy, he knows the game really well and
has experience. Laperriere, we all know how 'Lappy' played the game
with his heart, put everything on the line every night. He brings a
lot of positive attitude, so I am looking forward to having them both
there."
Joe
Mullen will remain as an assistant coach, and Jeff
Reese will remain as goaltending coach.
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