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| Peter Laviolette |
Philadelphia (The Phanatic Magazine) - The Philadelphia Flyers dominated their series with the Buffalo
Sabres and finally moved on to the Eastern Conference semifinals with an emphatic 5-2 Game 7 win on Tuesday.
You can make strong argument, however, that the Flyers outplayed the Sabres in six of the seven games yet needed overtime in Game 6 and a monster effort in the finale to avoid an early elimination.
Most blame the goaltending for the up and down performance against an inferior opponent. I'm looking at the guy behind the bench.
Conventional wisdom says this might be the Golden Age of Coaching in Philadelphia sports. There are no Rich Kotites or Nick Leyvas in town. No John Stevens or Eddie Jordan. In fact, the most lightly-regarded mentor in the city, Phillies skipper Charlie Manuel, is the one with the championship.
About two months ago I was asked to rate the local coaches on a radio show and after some hemming and hawing about how their peers talk with great reverence about Andy Reid, Doug Collins and Peter Laviolette, I went with Lavy No. 1, followed by Reid, Collins and poor ole' Charlie.
In the bowels of the Wells Fargo Center as I watched Flyers got ready to put their season on the line against a far less talented Sabres club by kicking around a soccer ball and shooting some jumpers, I was forced to amend those ratings, elevating the Sixers' Collins to No. 1 and bumping Laviolette all the way down to four, which may be a slight to the Union's Peter Nowak.
Let's face it, most of the local hockey scribes are in the tank for the Orange and Black and basically genuflect at the site of Laviolette. While I'll be the first to admit he's forgotten more about hockey than I'll ever know and he is a better coach than Stevens on his worst day, that doesn't mean that Laviolette didn't pilot his team to the brink of disaster with his comical handling of Philadelphia's goaltending situation in this series.
A win in Game 7 simply can't and shouldn't mask that.
And I get it, the Flyers don't have a real No. 1 netminder and that falls at the feet of Paul Holmgren, not Laviolette. But that doesn't mean you don't have to choose someone to stand in between the pipes every night. Good goaltender or not, Philadelphia was the second seed in the East and should have run over the Sabres like a speed bump.
From being around professional athletes in every major sport for nearly two decades, I've come to understand they crave routine more than anything else. Laviolette has robbed any sense of normalcy from three different goaltenders in a 12-day span, a path of destruction Lavy's simple-minded predecessor might chuckle at.
Laviolette opened with 22-year-old Sergei Bobrovsky in Game 1 against Buffalo. The rookie played well but was outdueled by Ryan Miller. Bobrovsky was then shaky early in Game 2 and was pulled for veteran Brian Boucher with the Flyers down 3-2.
The Laviolette lemmings cheered when Boucher settled things down in that one and the Flyers went on to even the series. Praise about pushing the right buttons was showered all over Laviolette, including by yours truly.
But then I got to thinking ... Why did we, the media, consider it a fait accompli that "Bob" would have went on to lose Game 2? After all, the Flyers were the better team, down just one goal and eventually scored five. In essence, we applauded panic.
Boucher eventually settled in and split a pair of games in Buffalo before allowing two soft goals in Game 5. After the Sabres netted a third marker, the impatient Laviolette pulled him for Michael Leighton, the same guy who played all of one NHL regular season game in 2010-11 and gave up the most famous softie in Flyers history to extinguish their Stanley Cup dreams last season.
The most egregious error, however, came at the outset of Game 6 when Laviolette called on Leighton with the season on the line. Predictably, his third goalie was awful early, immediately putting the Flyers behind the eight-ball in an elimination game.
Boucher came to the rescue the Flyers again and Philadelphia fought back to extend its season when Ville Leino shoved in a loose puck 4:43 into overtime, lifting the Flyers to a 5-4 victory and forcing the deciding Game 7.
Lavy's flip-flopping could have easily inspired a Saturday Night Live sketch if the general public cared about hockey and Bob to Boosh to Leighton to Boosh had veteran NHL observers across the country scratching their heads.
The Game 1 and Game 2 starter didn't even dress again until Game 7. The Game 6 starter with the season on the line didn't dress until Game 3 and was absent again for Game 7.
Who's on first?
Calling out Laviolette for his indecision over the past 12 days isn't using hindsight or playing armchair quarterback, it's the sensible thing to do with the empirical evidence available.
Laviolette forced his team to the brink with the kind of flip-flopping that would make the most artful politician blush.
Make no mistake, the Flyers advanced despite their coach. Here's hoping they can do it again.
1 comment:
Flyers did not dominate the whole series. You don't watch hockey very much, do you?
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