Philadelphia Flyers
Mike Yeo will be behind the bench serving as head coach in the interim, as the Flyers try to avoid a ninth straight loss against the Colorado Avalanche on Monday night.
The Flyers have fired head coach Alain Vigneault on Monday. Assistant coach Michel Therrien was also fired. Mike Yeo will take over as interim head coach.
In a 7-1 rout by the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Flyers losing streak reached eight games, with now three of those losses coming at the hands of the back-to-back champs. And the takeaways from this one are pretty simple. It can’t be much longer before more changes start coming. There isn’t much more to say about the play on the ice that hasn’t already been said during this streak. A season that was all about making the playoffs and getting back to winning has become the opposite in a hurry.
Sunday’s game didn’t go any better than the previous seven games, as the Lightning struck early and often in a 7-1 result at Wells Fargo Center.
The Tampa Bay Lightning return to Philadelphia, closing out the season series and looking for a sweep on Sunday night.
Alain Vigneault’s postgame press conference lasted about two and a half minutes. But it was his tone and clearly visible frustration that told the story. The Flyers coach and his staff may have received a vote of confidence of sorts from Fletcher just a day earlier, but the veteran bench boss knows when the ship is sinking and he becomes the first guy on the chopping block.
It wasn’t a result that was as out-of-hand as the others recently, but it was a defeat all the same, as the Flyers took the loss for the seventh straight game, 4-1, to the Rangers.
The Flyers pay a visit to the New York Rangers for the first time this season, and get a former Ranger back in their lineup as well, hoping this could be one of the internal improvements that starts to turn their season.
Fletcher leaned on the difficulty of the team’s schedule and injuries over the course of the first 20 games of the season, placing more emphasis on a few early-season successes and less on the noticeable struggles the team has had over the last couple of weeks.
There’s really no end in sight for the Flyers losing trend, not without some serious adjustments. That was fully evident in the most recent defeat, a 5-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Sunday night.
