Flyers training camp is less than a month away and what better way to dissect a team than to start from the top.
I like John Stevens as both a coach and as a person. I think that most teams are a reflection of their coach. I like that despite the Flyers being constantly abused by terrible officiating he does not ever lose his cool behind the bench. He takes the brunt of a bad performance and credits his players for the good ones. He has an extremely dry personality in front of the cameras and he gives you very little bulletin board material. I respect the way he handles himself and his team. However, results are the defining measure of success and the way the Flyers are built going into this next season, only results will save John Stevens from being just the next guy cut loose from the orange and black.
I think Stevens has done a fairly good job as the coach of the Philadelphia Flyers considering the hand he was dealt. He is regarded as a players’ coach; he is the type of coach who is able to help younger players develop into mature hockey players. He inherited a last-place team and the following year made it to the Eastern Conference Finals. That is not an easy task, especially considering he did this with a team that carried over only a handful of players from the previous season and had very little time to become a cohesive unit. My preseason prediction for the 2007-08 season was, at best, to make the playoffs and be eliminated in the first round. With so many young and new faces they exceeded all expectations and over-achieved.
Heading into last season, many people had very high hopes for the Flyers considering all that was accomplished the previous year. I tried to stay even keeled because they were still relatively young and did not have the makeup of a championship team despite some early success the previous season. Yes, they had the balanced scoring and they would be a tough team to defend but they still did not have the defense capable of shutting a team down nor did they have the goaltending to get the job done. They were an extremely lopsided team with balanced yet inconsistent scoring and overall play down the stretch. Even more apparent, they were not a tough team to play against as witnessed in Pittsburgh’s come from behind win in game 6. Management recognized this trait and made some major moves in the offseason to correct the issue.
For the first time in John Stevens' tenure as the coach of the Flyers, he has a team that should no longer be regarded as a team of the future. This team is officially built to win now. Yes, there are still some question marks, especially on the Ray Emery experiment. However, Stevens has the most balanced all-around team he has ever had with the club and his “young core group of players” should no longer be able to hide behind their age. They must, this year, be held accountable as players in their prime not as young and upcoming.
Jeff Carter, Mike Richards and Braydon Coburn will be 25-years old by the time playoff hockey arrives. Vincent Lecavalier and Brad Richards were 24 years old when they won the Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay in 2004. Lecavalier captained the team and Brad Richards won the Conn Smythe trophy as the playoff MVP. In 2005-06 the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup behind rookie goaltender and playoff MVP Cam Ward and Eric Staal, who led the team in scoring with 28 points, both of whom were 22 years old. If we fast forward to the current Stanley Cup Champions the trend is easy to spot. The Penguins won the Stanley Cup behind the likes of Marc-Andre Fleury (24), Sydney Crosby (21) and Evgeni Malkin (22).
Youth is the new model of the NHL. Players in their mid to early twenties are no longer looked upon to just pitch in. They are expected to perform as if they are in their prime. If John Stevens hopes to keep his job past next season he needs to correct the stretches of inconsistent, poor play that plagued his team the last two years. Management is not going to settle for another ten- to fifteen-game spell of sloppy hockey, nor should they. In order for the Flyers to have success, Stevens must be able to get them over the final hurdle. He has had two full years to get his younger guys acclimated to the grind of the NHL game. The player development process should have taken place in the last two years and now it’s time to get the show on the road and treat these players as men.
The Flyers rank 15th in average age at 28.185 which means this team has officially been assembled to win now. There is no more looking ahead to the future and Stevens knows better than anyone that his future with the club will be in jeopardy if the team does not perform to the level that Paul Holmgren and company are expecting. But like I said, I like John Stevens and his demeanor and I do believe that he is up to the task.
