Flyers Quarter Season Grades
By Bryan
Flyers Quarter Season Grades: Coaching
Peter Laviolette was dismissed before he had a chance to do anything with the team, and it’s impossible to know if he could have righted the ship on his own. Craig Berube could hardly be faulted for the losses that followed; despite his eight year tenure as a member of the coaching staff, the implementation of his system occurred when the team had zero confidence. However difficult it is to use only a handful of games as a sample set, the Flyers are apparently buying into his system; the team has accumulated points in the last six games, scoring more than three goals in four of those outings, and they never truly looked shaken.
The Flyers’ forecheck occasionally looks eerily similar to Laviolette’s style, but when it comes time for defense, the team has been better at locking the game down without sacrificing offense; their goal differential in the third period of those games is 9-4. Part of that comes from a level of confidence the team has been lacking for almost two years, but part of it is also rock-solid coaching.