The Philadelphia Flyers Have Established Their 2019-20 Coaching Staff

The Philadelphia Flyers have officialized their coaching staff for the 2019-20 season.

Just hours after it was reported that the Philadelphia Flyers would bring in Michel Therrien as an assistant, the team announced that they’ll add Therrien and Mike Yeo as assistants to Alain Vigneault while retaining the services of Ian Laperriere, Kim Dillabaugh, and video coordinator Adam Patterson. Kris Knoblauch and Rick Wilson will not return to the team in any capacity.

As I mentioned in this article, Therrien has 12 years of NHL head coaching experience with two stints with the Montreal Canadiens and one with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Yeo also brings a solid amount of knowledge of his own, leading the Minnesota Wild and most recently the St. Louis Blues bench in an eight-year span. He was fired early on in the 2018-19 campaign after a poor start with the Blues and replaced by former Flyers Head Coach Craig Berube.

The hirings of Therrien and Yeo are pretty “meh” to me. I understand what General Manager Chuck Fletcher and Vigneault are doing by bringing in two guys with prominent NHL wisdom to help get messages across to the team, but I’m skeptical at just how effective they’ll be in their respective roles. Therrien will likely run the Flyers defense, meaning Yeo will head the power-play, and the last thing I want to see is him ripping Shayne Gostisbehere apart for turning the puck over trying to make an offensive-minded play. As for Yeo, he’s just Yeo. He should do fine in his man-advantage role as long as he utilizes the talent effectively.

As far as Lappy goes, I have no idea how he’s been able to keep his job time and time again. The Flyers penalty kill hasn’t had a consistently good year since 2013, which lies solely on Laperriere’s abilities as a coach. The unit did perform better in the second half of last season, but I’d attribute that more to the addition of Scott Gordon and some of the tweaks he made to the formation.

Speaking of Gordon, it’s worth noting that he’ll be heading back to Lehigh Valley to once again serve as Head Coach of the Phantoms. I’m happy that he’s decided to return to Philadelphia’s AHL affiliate, especially with all of the young talent set to arrive next year.

Welcome to a new-ish era of hockey in Philadelphia, Flyers fans. We’ll have to wait and see if these faces can prove to be successful as time goes on.