PHILADELPHIA – When the Flyers sit down to figure out who will be their next head coach, they vow to have no pre-conceived notions.
He could be young, he could be a veteran. He could have success on his resume or he might not have a resume at all.
In Thursday night’s pre-game press conference, general manager Daniel Briere said he, president of hockey operations Keith Jones and governor Dan Hilferty will keep an open mind as they hire a new bench boss.
Following Thursday morning’s firing of head coach John Tortorella, the door has been pushed wipe open for a new coach. There figure to be plenty of candidates.
“We’re going to keep everything open,” Briere said. “We’re not going to limit ourselves. But at the same time, if a young coach fits the bill then, yeah, we might go for it.
“We haven’t made a list of coaches yet. We’ll deal with that in time.”
Briere said the Flyers probably won’t do any comprehensive research until after the final nine games are played.
“We’re not there yet,” Briere said at the Wells Fargo Center. “This happened really quickly in the last few days. It’s not like we have anything prepared. We haven’t even started making a list yet or anything like that.
“We have bigger things to deal with right now. Making sure the mindset is in the right place. The focus has been on the team and the players.”
So the possibility of bringing in a new coach for the last nine games was never considered. For now, interim head coach Brad Shaw will be getting most of the attention.
“We’ll be evaluating him and our coaches the rest of the way,” Briere said. “One thing I can tell is we have a young team. A coach that can help this team is very important.”
As for how the last nine games figure into the big picture, Briere was emphatic.
“When I addressed the guys this morning, I asked them to stick together,” Briere said. “I told them if you don’t feel like you’re up to it, feel like you can’t play tonight, think about the guy next to you.
“He might be up for a contract year, he might be trying to save his job just to finish his year in the NHL. Play for each other was what the message was.”
According to Briere, the Flyers might be down but they don’t think of themselves as out.
“They’ve never quit,” he said. “They’ve always played hard.”
Things were looking promising toward the end of the 2023-24 season but then things fell apart, just as they have, to a lesser extent, this season. The Flyers made some trades and that had some effect. How much blame does the coach deserve?
“I’m not sure we gave him (Tortorella) enough credit for where we were in our rebuild and timeline,” Briere said. “We didn’t feel we could give up the assets we were getting for Sean Walker and I know it hurt us. It was something we couldn’t pass up.
“It was tough reading some of the comments that we out there, that this was going to be the year. I knew in my gut that we were still going to go through another tough year. I knew we weren’t out of the woods. We were still in that deep down rebuild. You get so close to the playoffs and then you’re coming back the following year.”
It wasn’t enough to convince Briere the Flyers were legitimate contenders.
“There was a reality there, a chance that we could step back (this year),” Briere said. “Unfortunately it happened.”
Whatever the case, Briere believes the future looks bright.
“When I look at the team now, I can feel good that these are the guys who will help us moving forward,” the GM said. “It’s a young team and it shows at times, the lack of experience. But the excitement of the prospects of the players that are coming (development system, draft picks). . .I’m not sure next year will be a big step forward but heart is the hardest part of the rebuild.”
