It's Peter Laviolette.
The club announced the move on Monday morning in a press conference which was the exact opposite of their July smile-fest when Ray Emery, Vinny Lecavalier and Mark Streit were introduced, coming a little more than 14 hours after a 2-1 loss at Carolina on Sunday night dropped the team to 0-3 for the second consecutive season.
"I met with Peter Laviolette early this morning and
informed him that he was being relieved of his duties as
head coach," Flyers GM Paul Holmgren stated at a late-morning press conference. "I think from a timeline
standpoint of my decision, on making this change at such an
early point in the season, I can go back a little bit to
last year with my concerns on how the team played. Looking
back, you think, lockout, shortened year, we didn't have a
training camp, we had a lot of injuries—I thought it was
important that Peter had another shot with our training
camp."
Assistant Kevin McCarthy, a holdover from Laviolette's time in Carolina, was also given the heave.
Forty-eight-year-old Craig Berube has been given the lead job on a full-time basis, with Ian Laperriere and former assistant GM John Paddock alongside, the 18th person to be so honored. He will also be the 10th man to hold the post in the last 20 years, following in the footsteps of the following illustrious men since the start of the 1993-94 season: Terry Simpson, Terry Murray, Wayne Cashman, Roger Neilson, Craig Ramsay, Bill Barber, Ken Hitchcock, John Stevens and Laviolette.
"We have some work to do. Craig has some work to do. He understands that. We're going to get better," said Holmgren."I believe in our players, but I'm not letting them off the hook. We can play better."
Berube's lone head coaching experience came with the Philadelphia Phantoms, going 46-27-7 in his one full season at the helm in 2007-08 that included a second-round playoff loss.
Joe Mullen and Jeff Reese have been retained as assistants. Kjell Samuelsson now takes Laperriere's old slot of Director of Player Development.
Ken Hitchcock had earlier held the honor, canned eight games into the 2006-07 season after a dismal 1-6-1 start, part of the infamous "Bloody Sunday" of October 22, 2006 which also saw Bob Clarke step away as General Manager and Holmgren finally take the reins.
"First of all, I'd like to thank the Flyers organization—Mr. Snider, Peter Luukko, Paul Holmgren—for giving me the opportunity to coach the Flyers," the sanguine Berube stated. "It's a great honor, it really is. I've always been a Flyer in my mind, and now I'm the head coach, so I'd like to thank them."
Berube's ascension is nothing less than the eventual reward of a company man caught in a situation where his bosses are left with little options. He's never been far from the club which plucked him from the Medicine Hat Tigers of the WHL back in 1986, and for whom he made his NHL debut late in the 1986-87 season. He finished his playing career with the Phantoms in 2004 and was brought on as an assistant the following season, remaining with the franchise ever since.
It's a similar situation to the one the organization found itself seven years ago, when in a pinch Stevens was called up to guide a roster of young players incapable of responding to Hitchcock -- at least he was a two-time Calder Cup winner with the Phantoms (one as player in 1998 and head coach in 2005) -- unlike Berube, who has no track record of ultimate success.
One thing is clear: Ed Snider's itchy trigger finger is just warming up in the quest to win that elusive third Cup, and any further failures will result in those higher up than on-ice jobs, but below him, getting the boot. It still remains to be seen if Holmgren will enjoy favored status until he decides it's time to go with Ron Hextall currently serving under him.
"From my own point of view, I was disappointed in the start we had, and I was also disappointed in the preseason. Hopefully, this time it will work out on our behalf," Snider said.
Another thing which is clear from a top management standpoint, is that the King has spent many too many years in his ivory tower. With no one to check his power and influence, even if he has no direct hand in personnel decisions, quotes like the following will be de rigueur from now on.
"We don't need a fresh perspective. We've been to the Stanley Cup Finals a bunch of times and made the playoffs. That's winning. We're trying our damnedest to do it. That's our culture," snipped Snider when challenged on the fact that the new head coach was another so-called "good soldier" who had worked his way up through the organization.
A fresh perspective on someone's part was sorely needed. While firing the head coach might have been the easiest thing at such an early juncture, perhaps waiting until the 10-game mark, when other clubs working from a seller's point-of-view are ready to deal, could have mitigated the stalemate. It also could have provided the mindset that a proven coach from outside the family would be a better long-term bench solution, even if it's true that Laviolette lost the kids in the room.
Snider bristled at any suggestion that he had a hand in the firing, essentially saying in the presser and later on CSN, that any personnel moves are run through him, but that a disagreement or veto on any move from the front office is tantamount to not having trust in the General Manager.
One person now outside the massive monument to decades of "winning" on South Broad Street to give his perspective was Canadiens forward Danny Briere, who said: "I'm surprised that it came so fast. It's sad to see. He's a really good coach."
The 48-year-old native of the Boston suburbs departs Philadelphia having compiled a record of 145-97-29 along with an Atlantic Division title in 2011, three playoff appearances and a trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 2010. It wasn't enough to sustain the man who ranks third on the franchise list in wins, behind Fred Shero (308) and Mike Keenan (190).
Since 1994, Berube is the fourth head coach to have come from inside the ranks, after Murray, Barber and Stevens.
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