The Philadelphia Flyers Have Hired Alain Vigneault To Be The First Coach To Win A Stanley Cup In Philly Since 1975*
*technically Quenneville won the Cup in Philly back in 2010 but you know what I meant…*
The Flyers struck out on the Joel Quenneville sweepstakes. There’s no other way to put it. When the decision was made to fire Dave Hakstol, the attention immediately shifted over to Joel. And with Q deciding to go get his early retirement on down in South Florida, the Flyers immediately went into scramble mode. I mean any time you think you have a 3x Stanley Cup winning coach locked in and then you miss out on him, it’s going to send you into said scramble mode. So what did the Flyers go out and do?
They hired 2x Stanley Cup losing head coach Alain Vigneault.
Listen…I don’t hate the move. I mean the one thing I definitely hate is having to learn how to spell “Alain Vigneault” correctly on the first try. But that should only take a few weeks, maybe a month. Plus I could always just call him AV. Now that I think about it, I think we should actually just strictly refer to him as AV considering there’s not a chance in hell that people in Philly are ever going to be able to correctly pronounce “Vigneault”. So AV it is.
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But once the whole “how the fuck do we say this guy’s name” settles down…I don’t know. I don’t love the move but I also don’t hate it. I mean he had the Canucks winning back-to-back Presidents Trophies and took them to the Cup Final in 2011. Granted, the city of Vancouver ended up rioting after they lost that series but that’s neither here nor there. He was also able to take the Rangers to a Cup Final where they lost to an absolute wagon of a LA Kings team. So even though AV may not have the 3 rings like Q does, he’s at least proven that he can put together some winning teams and get almost the absolute most out of those rosters. And that’s all the Flyers really need right now.
The Philadelphia Flyers are coming desperately close to becoming irrelevant in the city of Philadelphia. I think it’s already starting to happen but luckily there’s still enough hype around Carter Hart to give the city something to talk about when it comes to them. But if the Flyers have another disappointing season next year where they miss out on the playoffs? This city is done being a hockey town, which would be devastating. So you bring in AV, he gets the team on the right track, and maybe the buzz around the Flyers can get itself going again here in Philly. As much as a Cup would be incredible, all I really want is for this team to not be completely irrelevant in the city. Because that’s depressing as fuck.
Plus–you never know. I mean I know that AV has worked with some pretty solid goalies before. But Carter Hart has the chance to be the best out of all of them. Maybe that’s exactly what Alain Vigneault needs to get over his personal hump. Maybe he’s the guy to take the Flyers back to the Stanley Cup Final and maybe Carter Hart is the guy to finally get AV a ring.
P.S. – I’m just glad that the Flyers decided to go with somebody who has NHL coaching experience and wasn’t previously tied to the team before. Nothing would have been worse than if they decided to get cute and hire a rookie coach again. Enough of that shit. Alain Vigneault has experience. He specifically has experience in the Metro division. It’s not the sexiest hire in the world but it’s far from the worst. I was skeptical when I first started this blog but I think I just wrote myself into loving this move.