10:00 am: At his media availability, Fletcher confirmed that Yeo will not be head coach next season. They will continue to speak with him over the next few weeks to determine if there is another place in the organization, though he is expected to interview for other positions around the league.
8:30 am: The Philadelphia Flyers are another one of the teams in the NHL with an interim coach after they fired Alain Vigneault partway through the year. Mike Yeo, who took over, has a long history with general manager Chuck Fletcher, dating back to their days together with the Minnesota Wild. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be helping him in this case. Kevin Weekes of ESPN tweeted last night that the Flyers are expected to move on from Yeo, and Olivia Reiner of the Philadelphia Inquirer confirmed it this morning.
It certainly makes sense to bring in a new coaching staff, given the struggles of the Flyers this season. It’s not like things turned around after Yeo took over. In his 60 games behind the bench, the team went 17-36-7, finishing last in the Metropolitan Division and 29th in the league. They were 31st in goals for, 27th in goals against, 27th in penalty killing, and dead last on the powerplay. It was a brutal year to be a Philadelphia fan, and retaining Yeo–at least as head coach–never seemed to make much sense.
One might ask if Fletcher himself is in the crosshairs, though Flyers brass has made it clear that they will continue to back the front office executive for the time being. The general manager will meet with the media today to break down the season and discuss what changes will be made this offseason.
Yeo, meanwhile, will have to look for another job unless he is brought back as an assistant under the new head coach. Throughout his career, he has been given head coaching opportunities only to squander them with poor performances after some early success. In Minnesota, he helped the team to a 100-point season in 2014-15, and then was out partway through the next year. With the St. Louis Blues, he took the team to the second round and then somehow managed to miss the playoffs in 2018, even with a 44-32-6 record.
There is some evidence that he can be a successful head coach at the NHL level, but it obviously didn’t come in Philadelphia this season. His name will likely be included in some other coaching searches, though where he eventually ends up obviously still remains to be decided.
Flyers are a train wreck of an organization right now. They can’t develop talent at all. You move guys like Konecny, Provorov, Farabee to actual competent organizations and they will flourish.
Pretty sad that through all of those middling years with Hextall where they refused to spend any picks or prospects to buy some productive veterans to assist the prime years of Giroux, Voracek and Simmonds, they have yet to develop any players to carry the torch. So many misses. Hapless and without direction, with nothing exciting in the pipeline. New coach (again) aught to fix that though!
He is absolute trash.
Should have played Yandle to 1000.
Is Yandle done? Probably. He should have never taken that away from him.
Yeo was the only person brave enough TO end the streak and I will always respect him for that.
+1 for DarkSide. Part of the point of setting ironman records is that the players are good enough to compete. Yandle was not an NHL player this year, and some young defenseman didn’t get the chance to develop because he was taking up that roster spot. Mike Yeo’s job wasn’t to earn records for Keith Yandle. It was to win hockey games.
The Flyers were out of it months ago. The writing was on the wall. If it was about giving a young defensemen a chance to play, it would’ve been then and not at the end of the season. Regardless of the man’s skills at this stage of his career, it’s quite the accomplishment to play that many consecutive games in a grueling sport
Philadelphia Flyers Not Expected To Retain Mike Yeo
Is the end of that sentence that says “Or Chuck Fletcher” missing for some reason?
Keeping Fletcher would be quite a nihilistic approach to sports team management.
Rick Tocchet