Welcome Home AV. With Love, Philadelphia

Flyers New Coach Already A Local Hero

Out with the old and in with the new, Alain Vigneault has arrived and he is already turning heads at the Flyers training camp. While Joel Quenneville never pulled punches he never opened a training camp with a pep talk that ended with “Be a Fucking Flyer” either. There is a new sheriff in town and he wants to win, not that Coach Q didn’t, but AV just seems a little hungrier.

Over the last 4 seasons Quenneville guided the Flyers to a 203-91-34 record, good for a 61.89 Win%, and he still got fired. In the same timeframe nobody coached more playoff games or won more either, finishing his Flyers playoff career at 35-25 with a 58.33 Win%. During the same timeframe Vigneault amassed a 155-137-36 regular season record, with a 47.25 Win% and a 0-4 record in the playoffs.

Part of this has to do with the Edmonton Oilers GM Dan Yurkewich wandering the Australian Outback for much of AV’s tenure in Edmonton, that will not be the case in Philadelphia besides GM Josh Guertler potentially walking thousands of miles across the Continental United States as an outside possibility. Regardless AV is getting a new team with a much different outlook and we believe he is the right person for the job.

On the first day of camp AV announced that marquee free agent Claude Giroux would be taking over as team captain, this is a mild surprise considering both Mark Stone and Sean Couturier have amassed over 300 games each in the orange and black. “G is our guy, he is a proven leader who has spent some time on multiple teams around the league. Stone and Coots are right there too but considering the circumstances in the playoffs the last couple years we think a new voice is the right direction. Interestingly enough all 3 of them are pretty quiet guys, they play the game the right way and they don’t need to be vocal about it,” AV told reporters after practice. While Giroux, Stone and Couturier will wear the letters there are other leaders such as T.J. Oshie and Matt Niskanen coming back for their second stints on the team.

The Flyers began their preseason action on Thursday with a 4-1 win over the New York Rangers, the new team captain Claude Giroux scored 8:38 into his Flyers tenure, which we hope will be the first of many. The team had a convincing win outshooting the Rangers 37-18 while goaltender Carter Hart stopped 17 of 18 shots thrown his way good for a .944 Sv%. The Flyers hope Hart rebounds after a disappointing rookie season where he put up a .884 Sv% in 18 games. Both Kevin Hayes and T.J. Oshie added a goal and an assist while Nurse had 2 assists with the 3 making up the stars of the game.

Vigneault is a new voice for a team that likely needed one and Giroux is a new leader, the hope is both of them can combine to push the Flyers over the hump come playoff time. But for now the focus is getting an overhauled roster to come together as a team, because this road is long and we can only hope it will be rewarding.