The Philadelphia Flyers made more news Wednesday morning from a front office, coaching staff, and roster standpoint.
Continuing to clean house after firing Ron Hextall on Monday, the Philadelphia Flyers announced they have fired Assistant General Manager Chris Pryor and Assistant Coach Gord Murphy from their positions with the team. Additionally, they have placed goaltender Calvin Pickard on waivers and sent forward Tyrell Goulbourne back to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Beginning with the roster moves, it seems that starting net-minder Brian Elliott is close to returning from injury with Pickard being placed on waivers. Pickard’s presence won’t be missed, to put it bluntly, as he constantly struggled in-net for the Flyers this season. Anthony Stolarz will be the backup goaltender until Michal Neuvirth returns, which is fine considering he hasn’t looked completely awful for Philadelphia in the two games he’s played in thus far.
As far as Goulbourne is concerned, he was basically just a placeholder until Michael Raffl returned from injury as he did last night. The 2013 third round pick didn’t do much in his brief time for the Flyers, posting zero points and fighting majors in two games for the club. He was supposed to bring a physical energy to the team when he was called-up, but hardly made any impact in that category on the ice.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Team President Paul Holmgren decided to let Pryor go. He was considered to be Hextall’s right-hand man and whomever takes the General Manager position will likely want their own person by their side.
The firing of Pryor is somewhat of a mistake in my eyes, though. He reportedly had a big role in terms of draft selections, and if you’ve paid any attention to the prospects chosen in the past couple years, the Flyers haven’t missed on a lot of them. Drafting may seem like one of the easier things to do but as we’ve seen with some of the selections Holmgren made when he was General Manager, there are people who just don’t have an eye for young talent.
Murphy was responsible for overseeing the defensive unit in his five seasons with the Flyers as an assistant coach. I personally don’t see how his firing will change anything about the on-ice product. Ian Lapierriere and Kris Knoblauch have done much worse in terms of coaching both of the struggling special teams’ units, but I guess Holmgren saw fit in making Murphy the lone firing. We’ll have to wait and see who will take his place on the Flyers bench.
Holmgren stated in the team press release that they “do not anticipate any further personnel moves in the near future.” meaning Head Coach Dave Hakstol’s job is likely safe for the time being. The Flyers now have three vacancies to fill in their front office and coaching staff, so stay tuned for further news regarding the Orange-and-Black.