If it Isn't Quenneville...Next Target?

[OccamsRazor]

7 minutes ago, FD19372 said:

Q didn't want to come here IMO, because he recognized the utter incompetence of the people at the top of the Flyers organization. So, he got on a plane, said "Thanks, but no thanks.". and left.

 

That and there is no pressure.

 

They don't even have fand that can boo.

 

Get paid lay in the sun, play some golf and pay no state taxes on 5.25 mill per. 

 

What's not to like.

 

Plus this is pretty much his last job so when it's time for the pasture all he has to do is walk across the street.

 

I ain't mad at him.

[FD19372]

7 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

That and there is no pressure.

 

They don't even have fand that can boo.

 

Get paid lay in the sun, play some golf and pay no state taxes on 5.25 mill per. 

 

What's not to like.

 

Plus this is pretty much his last job so when it's time for the pasture all he has to do is walk across the street.

 

I ain't mad at him.

Maybe we can drop Holmgren off by parachute into the Everglades. So close to Miami. Sorry Paul, we overshot Miami's runway.

[OccamsRazor]

Well this is decent news...right?

 

• Charlie O'Connor

   

  @charlieo_conn

   

Gordon says that if the Flyers were to go in a different head coaching direction at the NHL level, he wouldn't have an issue going back to be HC with the Phantoms. Doesn't sound like he has much interest in being an assistant, though, at any level.

 

As far as the Flyer's head coaching gig could it be possible to interview Rick Tocchet?

He has some good experience and I like what he has done out in Arizona.

Just kicking the can down the street.

[murraycraven]

I think Q had settled on Florida a while ago.   Good for Florida but I am not going to be upset that he chose to go elsewhere.   

 

IMO, I would look long and hard at Sheldon Keefe and I do like Tippett's system.  Not the most exciting brand of hockey but tough to play against.  I think Tippett could be the right coach to fix some of the lapses we see on the defensive side of the puck - and that includes the forwards.    I just hope Fletch does not try to be the smartest guy in the room and hire someone out of the college ranks.

 

 

[Poulin20]

1 hour ago, AJgoal said:

 

 

Seems like Philly had the largest offer on the table. You can't do that if you're not talking to someone.

 

Dang, I wonder how much coach Q had to pay Mike Matheson to give him #19????? 

[AlaskaFlyerFan]

10 hours ago, AJgoal said:

 

 

Seems like Philly had the largest offer on the table. You can't do that if you're not talking to someone.

 

Who is George Richards?  I've never heard of him.  Do you believe what he is saying?

 

I haven't seen anything that said any other team other than Florida asked to talk to Q.  I'm sure the Philly press would have been all over it if they had.

[AJgoal]

11 hours ago, AlaskaFlyerFan said:

 

Who is George Richards?  I've never heard of him.  Do you believe what he is saying?

 

I haven't seen anything that said any other team other than Florida asked to talk to Q.  I'm sure the Philly press would have been all over it if they had.

 

He's the Athletic's Florida beat writer. 

 

FWIW, Charlie O'Connor said the Fletcher's statement that the Flyers didn't talk to Q was "bull****" and that plenty of people he talked to said the Flyers were in on Q, they made serious offers, etc. Said folks on the business side were talking to Q. He doesn't know why Fletcher played it down.

 

[brelic]

2 hours ago, AJgoal said:

 

He's the Athletic's Florida beat writer. 

 

FWIW, Charlie O'Connor said the Fletcher's statement that the Flyers didn't talk to Q was "bull****" and that plenty of people he talked to said the Flyers were in on Q, they made serious offers, etc. Said folks on the business side were talking to Q. He doesn't know why Fletcher played it down.

 

 

Maybe he didn't talk to Q directly. Would seem strange to flat out lie like that. 

 

"Yes, we talked to Quenneville. It was clear our interests were not aligned, and I wish him well in Florida."

 

That was easy.

 

[King Knut]

On 4/8/2019 at 11:49 AM, Howie58 said:

It appears Quenneville is heading to the Panthers.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/joel-quenneville-off-board-where-203547885.html

 

The Miami Herald reported the same thing this morning.   If push came to shove with the folks on this roster, I would probably go with Tippett.  Fixing this team's D is imperative.

 

 

I like Keefe, but I think you have a hard time justifying him over keeping Gordon.

 

What I don't want is Boudreau or Capuano or some washed up old NHL hack or never was like that.  

 

Fletcher was a very Safe and uninspired and uncreative choice and so far he's made very sage and uninspired and uncreative moves and he's ended up missing out on a few key pieces as a result.

 

If he signs a boring old hat coach, I'm going to flip out.  If he was going to go with experience, he needed to be in on Quennville.  He missed that boat, and there's no one else out there with that level of experience and success, so you now have to go with an innovative up and comer (which is what I would have preferred). 

 

I like Keefe, but there are others like him whose names I forget. 

What I like about Gordon is that he has the room.  

 

Does he have that next level grit and gristle get them to be even better than they are (instead of being consistently worse than they are) the way a Laviolette did?  I don't know.  He didn't seem to worried about anything this year.  Maybe that was because he knew there were no stakes, maybe it was because he knew this team would need at least a year of deprogramming to wash the Hakstol stink off their games, but it would have been nice to see him a little more emotionally invested.

 

In the mean time, Fletcher had better have something good up his sleeve this off season.  

 

If I were him I'd offer sheet Marner or Kapanen, but try to arrange it with Toronto ahead of time and make that fairly public.  

The problem is that Marner is probably worth more than 10 million and at that point Fletcher would have to give up 4 first round picks and I'm not quite as interested in that.  Kapanen however could be had for the gentle price of a 1st, 2nd and 3rd rounder.  Alternatiely, he could straight up offer those picks to TO instead of going through the Offer Sheet drama that could potentially black ball him.

 

Toronto's put themselves over a barrel a bit and they'll likely need to trade either Marner or at least two other guys in order to not lose them.  

 

You could offer them 2 firsts and one of the goalies in the system like Ustemenko or maybe Farabee or Frost.  Essentially they need viable first round talent that they won't need to pay more than a million to for a few years when they can wash a few more bucks off the books.  

[King Knut]

Because if the fans think he failed at getting Quennville... (BEAT OUT BY FLORIDA... THE FRIGGIN' PANTHERS!!!!!)  That's not exactly going to encourage those to invest in the season tickets that they're already contemplating releasing.  

 

And also because Fletcher is likely highly aware of fan perceptions because HE IS LIKELY terrified of getting fired because his bosses fired the last guy without warning for essentially doing exactly what he told them he was going to do and they did that almost entirely because of fan perception that they themselves failed to control.  Every move Fletcher has made so far has screamed, "PLEASE DON'T FIRE ME!"

 

And let's face it, none of those moves have exactly gotten Fletcher off to an auspicious start. 

 

It's odd that Homer was okay Firing Hextall and then not doing anything of consequence.  When he took over as GM mid-season he knew he had to move Forseberg for some serious talent and then go ahead and sign a big a$$ name as soon as he could.  He even knew he'd need a goalie, he just went after bad two bad bets (Hackett, Biron) before he made a good bet that ran into serious bad luck (Emery).

 

This time however, he fires the GM, and immediately follows that by... doing absolutely nothing.  Doesn't even replace the GM right away.  Then that GM he finally brings in does... nothing at all for a while. Eventually he fires the coach (the thing that really needed to happen first, far more urgently than the GM).  Then that GM made a bunch of no consequence moves (his new coach however made the necessary moves of benching useless players and giving more ice time to younger ones).  Fletcher did eventually bring up Myers.  I'll give him that.  But trading Weise, Lehtera and Weal means almost nothing when Gordon wasn't playing them more than 5 minutes a night if at all anymore.

 

Trading Stolarz when he did may have cost the Flyers up to 4 wins and cost Hart a couple of weeks with an injury, but I digress.

 

Then for some reason he didn't take offers on Raffl and Elliott at the deadline (The Simmonds deal is whatever he could get apparently, but I'm still not convinced he likely got the best offer from the same GM that's been trying to screw Homer over ever since the Weber offer sheet). PLUS he misses out on Stone (again, maybe the Sens wouldn't send him to the division, but his agent certainly would have listened to how much more money you were willing to give him in July).  

 

With that track record, do you think either you or your bosses would want the Philly press and fandom openly knowing you blew it on Quenneville too?  

 

 

 

[OccamsRazor]

1 hour ago, King Knut said:

I think you have a hard time justifying him over keeping Gordon.

 

Not really Chuck just has to say I want to pick my guy.

 

Then let my guy pick his guys.

 

If the burden of turning this around is going to fall on Chuck he should be allowed to do it his way or there was no point in hiring him if you just want a puppet.

 

 

[OccamsRazor]

1 hour ago, King Knut said:

Farabee or Frost. 

 

No. Next question....

[King Knut]

1 hour ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

Not really Chuck just has to say I want to pick my guy.

 

Then let my guy pick his guys.

 

If the burden of turning this around is going to fall on Chuck he should be allowed to do it his way or there was no point in hiring him if you just want a puppet.

 

 

It's that he's doing things that he's pretty sure Homer and Scott won't hate.  

He's not making the moves they're telling him to make, but I feel like he's making moves because he thinks they expect him to.  Not because those moves any any measurable consequence or outcome.

 

When it comes to any opportunities to make next level moves and help change the team substantially, he's been absentee.  

So, no.  I do not trust him to pick his guys because I think he's afraid to or isn't capable of the creative kind of thinking that gets what he needs right now.

 

He's either going to have to win on Panarin going to have to pull some serious stuff.

 

1 hour ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

No. Next question....

 

For Marner?  really?  Marner?  94 point, +22,  21 year old Mitch Marner?  

Do we really think Frost or Farabee let alone the 11th overall pick this year has that in them?  

That's fine.  

 

I'd at least consider giving up a first, second and third for Kapanen.  

 

[OccamsRazor]

3 minutes ago, King Knut said:

When it comes to any opportunities to make next level moves and help change the team substantially, he's been absentee. 

 

How do you know this?

 

What moves should he have made you are certain he should have made that he didn't that wasn't outrageous or bad for the team?

 

Seems you are just assuming.

 

And yes no to Marner.

[brelic]

@King Knut

 

Myrtetus reported on air that the Flyers had the highest offer for Q. He just didn't want to come here, and it apparently has more to do with him WANTING to go to Florida and work with a familiar face than anything against Philly. It's not always about US. Myrtetus is a connected guy and must have a solid source(s) to back that up.

 

Fletch also did shop Raffl, but wasn't enamoured by the potential return (reportedly a 5th rounder, I believe).

 

Elliott became a necessity after Hart went down. 

 

Stolarz for Talbot was not my favourite move, but I guess I understand he wanted to bring in a veteran who isn't injured and happens to have a strong bond with our phenom goalie. In 6 games with the Oilers, Stolarz posted an .897, 3.77 - very much in line with his Philly numbers. Talbot's Philly numbers are just as bad as his Oilers stats.

 

Simmonds has THREE points in 17 games for the Preds, 27 points in 62 games for the Flyers. Hartman has SIX points in 19 games here. I'd say Hartman is a decent return on a rapidly declining asset. Teams had much better options ahead of Simmonds at the TDL.  

 

Fletch jettisoned Weal, Weise, Lehtera, brought up Hart, Myers. Sure they were small moves. But the point is that he made them. Hextall didn't. I take them for what they are - small but necessary moves. The time for big moves is from this point forward.

 

As for Stone, I know you believe that somehow Fletch failed, and that if he'd just backed up the Brinks truck, he'd be skating around in O&B. I see it differently. It wasn't about us. I'm sure Fletch inquired and either the asking price was too high, or Ottawa wasn't willing to deal with the East... either way, it's less about US and more about Ottawa, Stone, and where they wanted to ship him.

 

I'm not sold on Fletch either - but I haven't seen him do anything egregiously bad.

 

But I do agree with your overall sentiment. If he hires a retread coach, strikes out on Panarin, Hayes, or other 2C, and strikes out on landing the kind of defenseman we need, all while making small - or worse - bad trades between now and the end of summer, I'll be right there with you, pitchfork in hand, ready for the Fletch era to be over before it even gets going. 

 

 

[AJgoal]

RE: Stone

 

It made no sense to pay trade deadline prices for Stone. Ottawa moving him at the deadline made him way more valuable to a team like the Knights. A comparable package would have been this year's first, Sanheim or Myers, Laughton, and a 2nd. It might have been even higher due to Ottawa's reluctance to deal premium pieces inside the conference. Now I love Stone, but that's a ton to give up - on top of his 9.5 million dollar cap hit - for a team that's missing the playoffs this year. 

[King Knut]

9 minutes ago, brelic said:

@King Knut

 

Myrtetus reported on air that the Flyers had the highest offer for Q. He just didn't want to come here, and it apparently has more to do with him WANTING to go to Florida and work with a familiar face than anything against Philly. It's not always about US. Myrtetus is a connected guy and must have a solid source(s) to back that up.

 

 

Again, I don't care about Q.  He's not who I wanted.  I'm talking about Fletcher and his goals and if it was his goal to bring in Q, he failed.  Regardless of the reasons why.  This says to me that he will likely fail for Panarin too because Panarin will  likely want to go elsewhere as well (probably Florida at this point for similar reasons).  

 

It's not always about the Brinks truck (although sometimes it is).  Fletcher isn't a good salesman.  He doesn't have a history of being a good deal maker either.   

 

I don't care that he didn't get Q.  I didn't want him.  I care that he doesn't seem effective at thinking in advance and selling people on coming here even if they don't want to, which sorry to say is part of the job description.  

 

9 minutes ago, brelic said:

Fletch also did shop Raffl, but wasn't enamoured by the potential return (reportedly a 5th rounder, I believe).

 

Elliott became a necessity after Hart went down. 

 

Again of course you don't trade Raffl for a 5th rounder if that actually was the return, but there's more than one line on those phones and you leverage the 5th rounder against another GM and you work the table.  If you don't... if you're satisfied with the team that you have... then why are you here?

 

Elliott was only a necessity because Talbot was in work visa no man's land because Fletcher made that trade at a really bad time without thinking about it the ramifications.

 

9 minutes ago, brelic said:

Stolarz for Talbot was not my favourite move, but I guess I understand he wanted to bring in a veteran who isn't injured and happens to have a strong bond with our phenom goalie. In 6 games with the Oilers, Stolarz posted an .897, 3.77 - very much in line with his Philly numbers. Talbot's Philly numbers are just as bad as his Oilers stats.

 

Stolarz would have resigned for a year or two at a million or so.  His stats after returning from injury at the time of the trade were in line with Hart's, albeit over a very limited window because Gordon KEPT playing Hart which by the time he had no choice but to play Hart (because Stolarz had been traded and Talbot was lost in the rockies) probably got Hart injured.   The bigger deal to me is that Stolarz and Hart have similar styles and approaches to the position.  Hart just happens to be better at it, but I believe he was making Stolarz better as a result.  They are both about keeping the game calm in their end, staying square to the shooter and rebound control.  Talbot was too rusty to really analyze, but he didn't appear to have a similar presence back there. 

 

9 minutes ago, brelic said:

Simmonds has THREE points in 17 games for the Preds, 27 points in 62 games for the Flyers. Hartman has SIX points in 19 games here. I'd say Hartman is a decent return on a rapidly declining asset. Teams had much better options ahead of Simmonds at the TDL.  

 

I only mentioned the Simmonds deal because I find it shockingly difficult to believe that Poile had the best offer.  Maybe he did... who knows.  I'd just be shocked.  

 

9 minutes ago, brelic said:

Fletch jettisoned Weal, Weise, Lehtera, 

 

The key was that Gordon stopped playing them.  It didn't matter anymore.  Moving them didn't matter because he didn't get anything for them.  Gordon made the switch that mattered, not Fletcher.

 

9 minutes ago, brelic said:

 brought up Hart, Myers. 

 

He brought up Hart because he HAD to.  The pundits and press all pretty much concede this and at the time Fletcher as much as admitted that he wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't a near necessity.    Myers, I'll give him.  

 

9 minutes ago, brelic said:

 But the point is that he made them. Hextall didn't. I take them for what they are - small but necessary moves. The time for big moves is from this point forward.

 

Again, Hextall didn't make them because he thought he had the year.  The larger issue with Hextall wasn't that Lehtera and Weise and Weal were on the team.  The larger issue is that Hextall didn't fire the coach who kept playing them more than Lindblom and Patrick.   Hextall had problems as this team's GM and they were mostly in the form of trusting his head coaches when he should have long since given up on them and moved on.  Maybe if the Flyers had made the playoffs on the heels of Varone, Bailey, and Knight, you and Fletcher would have a point.  But they didn't.  They barely contributed because Gordon barely played them 7 minutes a night... which was actually less than he was using Lehtera and Weise and Weal (when he'd dress them).   Instead what we have are pointless moves on a team that missed the playoffs anyway.  In the end, the move Fletcher made that Hextall didn't and likely wouldn't have that really did matter was the coach.  

9 minutes ago, brelic said:

As for Stone, I know you believe that somehow Fletch failed, and that if he'd just backed up the Brinks truck, he'd be skating around in O&B. I see it differently. It wasn't about us. I'm sure Fletch inquired and either the asking price was too high, or Ottawa wasn't willing to deal with the East... either way, it's less about US and more about Ottawa, Stone, and where they wanted to ship him.

 

Again, as for Stone, it wasn't about acquiring him at the trade deadline.  I openly account for the fact that wasn't going to happen.  It wasn't about that brinks truck.  It was about telegraphing to his agent that Philly would back up that brinks truck in July.  Fletcher couldn't have inquired about the price for Stone directly because that's against the rules.  There are ways around this though and there are ways to communicate to an agent without directly talking to them.  My thing with stone is about Stone signing the deal with Vegas, not about Vegas acquiring him in the trade.  And it has echoes in the Quenneville deal that didn't happen and it has echoes in the Raffl and Elliott deals and the recurring theme is that Fletcher is not creative in getting things done.  

 

9 minutes ago, brelic said:

I'm not sold on Fletch either - but I haven't seen him do anything egregiously bad.

 

But I do agree with your overall sentiment. If he hires a retread coach, strikes out on Panarin, Hayes, or other 2C, and strikes out on landing the kind of defenseman we need, all while making small - or worse - bad trades between now and the end of summer, I'll be right there with you, pitchfork in hand, ready for the Fletch era to be over before it even gets going. 

 

 

 

I'm not calling anything egregiously bad.  I'm calling it all egregiously bleh.  boring.  unmomentous.  vanilla.  And that tells me he's going to disappoint us in the months to come because this team is going to need some seriously magical thinking to acquire the pieces that it might in order to get better.  They're there.  they're feasilbe.  they're just not going to be easy and if he gives up because Q wants to go to play for that GM or because Panarin wants to go play for that coach or because he can't leverage one crappy offer against another to get a better offer, then we're kind of screwed.  

 

The Q deal says to me that he almost definitely already has struck out on Panarin.  What 2C is out there in the Free Agent Market other than Duchene... the guy that ruins every team he comes to and every team he leaves gets better after he goes and that everyone overpays for?  Sure... let's sign that guy.  Kevin Hayes is the 3C this team needs, not the 2C.  And they don't need a 3C in reality, they need a 2C so Patty can be the 3C for a few years.  

 

He could still sign Tyler Myers I suppose, but most other D men you'd want him to get would require extremely creative thinking to acquire without giving up the prospects and picks they need to keep moving forward.  

 

And I'm not calling for his job.  I'm calling for him to start doing it better.  As I've tried to state before this isn't about Fletcher for me, it's about Holmgren and Scott.  They're the ones I'm worried about.  Fletcher's just a symptom.  Their satisfaction with his performance so far tells me that everything they said about firing Hextall was utter B.S. and that the real reasons were personal, not professional.

 

Which by extension means we have someone in the job of GM who might not be the best option, making what might not be the best moves possible, not because Hextall made worse moves, but because Hextall picked the wrong day to rag on Scott and that seems incredibly stupid and no way to move this hockey team forward.  

 

I don't want Hextall back because frankly he ticked me off too much with the Hakstol thing.  But the thinking behind removing him and everything that's been done since in order to get to the next level just doesn't add up at this point.

 

[radoran]

18 minutes ago, King Knut said:

But the thinking behind removing him and everything that's been done since in order to get to the next level just doesn't add up at this point.

 

It adds up fine - they spent a ton of money renovating the Big Bank Building and they weren't seeing the ancillary numbers to back it up because people were losing interest in paying big money to go see hockey in Philadelphia.

 

If you're looking for a strictly "hockey" reason to have fired Hextall, there really wasn't one and - as you point out - ol' Fletch has shown that in spades.

 

There wasn't a surefire goalie on the market last summer. There wasn't an obvious 3C choice that could have been gotten short term. The #2 overall UFA signed with the Flyers.

 

Unless ol' Fletch decides to put on his big boy trading pants, I don't see how he can do very much at all to effect any big change.

 

Of UFA Cs 31 and under, you have Duchene, Hayes, Johansson, Nelson, Wilson, Kruger, Weal, Vecchione...

 

UFA Ds under 31? Karlsson, Myers, Gardiner, del Zotto, Nemeth, Rutta, Petrovic, Sbisa...

 

Teams are simply not letting these type of guys hit the open market. There's what? Seven guys on either list a team would even have remote interest in as an impact player? And who knows if any of them get signed before July 1.

 

This is where something really has to give, or we're going to be relying on someone like an Alain Vignault to get better results out of last year's team.

 

And, as we've discussed, that's not something I think of as a "positive".

[BobbyClarkeFan16]

So for those worried about Bruce Boudreau:

 

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/bruce-boudreau-return-head-coach-wild-2019-20/

 

One more coach off the list, one more coach closer to Sheldon Keefe. 

[flyercanuck]

15 hours ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

Not really Chuck just has to say I want to pick my guy.

 

Then let my guy pick his guys.

 

If the burden of turning this around is going to fall on Chuck he should be allowed to do it his way or there was no point in hiring him if you just want a puppet.

 

 

 

 Unless that's why he was hired. 

 

 I really hope Holmgren and Scott keep their noses out of the gms business, but I have a hard time believing they will. 

[flyercanuck]

9 hours ago, BobbyClarkeFan16 said:

So for those worried about Bruce Boudreau:

 

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/bruce-boudreau-return-head-coach-wild-2019-20/

 

One more coach off the list, one more coach closer to Sheldon Keefe. 

 

Thank God. At least until we see who they bring in. 

[Buffalo Rick]

So do you think the Flyers fo with an AHL guy or an assistant?  The Sabres could consider Chris Taylor of the Rochester Americans.  I would far prefer Ruff.  He would be a good choice for someone if not us. I have no idea who coach's the Phantoms?  

[OccamsRazor]

3 hours ago, flyercanuck said:

Unless that's why he was hired. 

 

I hope not i ain't got time for that sh it...i am getting better looking but i ain't getting younger....i want Cup!!!!!! 

[OccamsRazor]

As much as i would be down with Keefe as the next head coach maybe something tells me that Fletcher wants a experienced guy no time for guys to come in and learn the ropes of the NHL for a few years. 

 

I think they want a vet so they can hit the ground running and come into next with playoff expectations and not waste more of Giroux years.

 

I think Dave Tippett could be that guy.

 

Giroux could be Dave's 39 year old Ray Whitney (who lead the team with 77 points) and Voracek can be his Vrbata who put up 62 points as a 30 year old.

 

Provorov can be his OEL Sanheim can play the Yandle role and they just need to find a Aucoin type i prefer him to not be 38 though.

 

I think he does a good job getting a lot out of whatever he has to work with.

 

They lost in the WCF.

 

I haven't seen much on it so i guess they are still doing their homework.

[flyer4ever]

Tippett won 5 playoff series in 14 years as a head coach. Vigneault won 13 series in 15 years as a head coach. Not really close.  I'm still not convinced a coach makes that big a difference. The talent and the character have to be there.

The Flyer players all championed for Gordon to be retained at their exit interviews, yet they all quit on him the last 2 weeks. I think Fletcher will have a tough time hiring the right coach with the current personnel. I wish I could be more optimistic like some others in this group, but the on ice performance the last 2 years does not impress me or any perspective coach, nor does the handling of Haxtol.