Now I can finally engage in a bit of "I told you so's," after last night's 5-2 loss in Colorado left the Flyers 0-3-1 on the season and a woeful nine points out of first while sitting in last place in the Atlantic Division.
As of this afternoon, only the Flyers, Lightning and Ducks are winless - all saddled with variations of a four-loss slate.
I can't recall the specific entry, but I'm sure I came down on the side of not hiring John Stevens when Ed Snider blew up the coaching staff and front office almost two years ago. He was a stop-gap solution at best, and, as one of the good foot soldiers who worked his way up the ranks in the organization, I felt he should be given a chance at a transitional period but be let go when the stakes get high.
Well, after last year's playoff berth and ride to the Eastern Conference finals, the stakes got high.
Thus far, the Flyers played the final two periods against the Rangers in a game where the scheduling deck was stacked against them. They played the first 40 minutes against Montreal, then about 30 minutes in the overtime loss at Pittsburgh on Tuesday.
Last night, the club had a spurt for most of the second period and the first half of the third before being outclassed by a talented but equally struggling Colorado Avalanche.
In the long history of the clubs dating back to the Avs' arrival in Denver in 1995, the Flyers had never lost to Colorado by more than two goals. Whether it was the altitude, jet lag, or just general lack of preparation, being outshot 17-3 in the first period is unacceptable.
I don't think Stevens is primarily to blame, however. The larger onus falls on GM Paul Holmgren, who has made a fine mess of things trying to shoehorn a maximum amount of bodies for a minimum amount of money under the salary cap.
He justified the decision to get rid of a 50-point man in Umberger, the same player who led the club with 10 playoff tallies. He lowballed Thoresen knowing of his desire to return to Europe without a pay increase. He anticipated Jim Dowd hanging up his skates and came up with Arron Asham as a replacement, and decided on Glen Metropolit to fill in for Sami Kapanen. He tied the club in knots signing Jean-Sebastien Aubin to a one-year deal which meant both Dowd and Bryan Berard - clear-cut veteran help - had to cut loose as unrestricted free agents.
Therefore, this club is clearly not on the same level as far as talent, drive, and desire are concerned as last year's team. Still, Stevens has the "head" title under his name along with increased expectations after being named Sporting News coach of the year last season - and has yet to show any intuition or initiative to change things.
Add to that the fact that the lone man with bona-fide experience behind the bench, Terry Murray, was given leave to become the head coach in LA. It left Stevens' bench with exactly no real worthy assistants, two of whom eked out careers based on how well they punched opposing players.
Nonetheless, with this early damaging start, Stevens might have finally been exposed as a man who can offer little in the way of motivation or strategy once his wisdom is passed down to the players.
I'm sure he was very angry after last night's game. I'm sure he impressed upon captain Mike Richards, the alternates and other veterans that a better effort is needed. I'm sure the message will trickle down and be known in time for Saturday's game in San Jose.
But I'm also sure that win or lose, it will change nothing.
Like Bill Barber and Holmgren before him, Stevens is about to draw noticeable criticism for his utter lack of intelligence beyond a basic system. The fire and brimstone is there, as we've been assured, in large quantities behind the scenes.
But the brains are lacking, and it's a quality that also doomed the former two Flyer greats in their time at the helm.
Under Holmgren, the goodwill from the Flyers' surprise run to the 1989 Wales Conference finals evaporated a little more than two years later as management realized he had no plan to guide the club through an almost total roster turnover which saw the team plunge to the bottom of the Patrick Division in two consecutive March collapses.
Barber inherited a catatonic team from Craig Ramsay in December, 2000, and won the Jack Adams award as top coach in 2001 after guiding an injury-racked team to a second-place finish. Less than a year later, he was ousted after a near-total mutiny arose from players who singled out the former sniper's inability to formulate a game plan beyond simple tactics and fiery rhetoric.
It's clear now to see how in both prior cases that the team surrounding the coach was responsible for executing the game plan and lifting the club beyond a certain point; Stevens' tenure is rapidly taking on those characteristics. Take away the key cogs who were able to reach down and pull something from themselves that the coaching staff could not impart and you get a bunch of aimless sheep waiting for the shepherd to provide direction.
Four games out too soon to pass judgement? Wrong. No matter which way you slice it, it is always incumbent upon the coaching staff to spur a change in attitude or game plan. The players are there solely to execute what those in charge have laid out.
Already in each of these four games, the same maladies which plagued Stevens-led clubs in his first two seasons are cropping up again. Only this time, the trend is toward the disaster of two years ago rather than the resilience of last season.
The only solutions beyond line changes and benchings are: make trades to provide a psychological awakening or make changes to the coaching staff.
Since Holmgren's gotta figure a way out of the mess he created with nine defensemen and three goaltenders, a trade won't be in the works for a while. A coaching change done properly can be arranged.
Assume the Flyers will come away from this road trip at best 1-3-1 and at worst 0-4-1. After the Sharks game Saturday, the team has off until welcoming the Sharks next Wednesday. The conversations can be had and contacts can be made by then.
With the sudden hiring of Joel Quenneville in Chicago, two prime candidates remain: John Tortorella and Marc Crawford. Torts may just want to take a breather to sit back and collect his Tampa money, but Crawford has been on the sidelines since the Kings unceremoniously dumped him in the Spring.
Tortorella's confrontational style takes the intelligence but the worst psychological aspects of a Mike Keenan - something which may not jibe with this current crop of rising young stars or the organizational philosophy.
That leaves Crawford, who helmed the Nordiques/Avalanche to four straight division titles and a Stanley Cup, then finished Keenan's rebuilding of the Canucks and turned them into contenders over seven-plus seasons. He shares similar personality traits with both Stevens and Tortorella, has double the experience, plus a winning pedigree and the unfortunate circumstance of having departed Denver (by resigning) and Vancouver (by firing) before he should have.
Of course, this is by no means a doom-and-gloom prediction. The jokes of "What will happen
first - a Phillies World Series or a Flyers win" are irrelevant. The club will have a turnaround, we just have no indication where and when it will come. They will level out eventually, but we don't really know if Stevens has the scruples to step outside basic hockey logic and find a winning solution.
Since 2005, the Flyers organization has shown a quick but thoughtful trigger finger with an eye to the future when things are not right. Although John Stevens is another in a long line of favored sons who worked their way to the top, the front office can't be blind for too long to the realization that change is needed.
And that change is needed much sooner than anyone could have anticipated.
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