Chuck Fletcher did not want to fire Alain Vigneault on Monday.

It’s not that the discussion wasn’t happening. Oh, it was. There was definitely conversation in the general manager’s inner circle as to how long to let the underperformance of the team go on before they had to fire a coach who was undeserving of being let go just to send a wake up call to the players.

Fletcher was hoping for a little more time. Get some injured players back. Play a couple teams who mighty not be on the level of those the Flyers have been facing night after night.

Let the team come up for air, and see what happens. If it continues to falter, then you make the move at a time that is convenient for the operation of the team, so that a new coach may have time to set his staff, and practice with the team before playing any games.

But that’s not how it worked for Fletcher. According to a team source, Flyers chairman Dave Scott told Fletcher the time was Monday morning after a 7-1 debacle against Tampa on home ice Sunday.

Fletcher followed the boss’s orders, but had no plan in place for a replacement, even though he had compiled a list of candidates he would consider to take over for Vigneault after meeting with team advisors.

Vigneault and assistant coach Michel Therrien were axed. Assistant coach Mike Yeo, who served as a head coach for Fletcher in Minnesota, was retained to take over the team on an interim basis.

However, the Flyers had a game Monday night. They were also in the midst of playing five games in seven days with no real practice time available for a week, other than maybe a quick one on Thursday before flying to Las Vegas to take on the Golden Knights Friday.

So, they had to scramble to field a coaching staff behind Yeo.

Darryl Williams, a long-time Vigneault collaborator who was hired by the Flyers in July to be the third assistant coach, replacing Ian Laperriere who was promoted to head coach of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the AHL, also kept his job and served as Yeo’s assistant. Laperriere was called in on an emergency basis from Lehigh Valley to serve as a second assistant coach Monday.

After the game, in which they lost to Colorado 7-5, allowing four goals or more in the fifth consecutive contest, Yeo said there still was uncertainty about who would be on the road trip serving as assistant coaches and said meetings were set to start immediately after Monday’s game and into Tuesday morning.

The GM’s box was packed Monday night as Fletcher had assistant GMs Brent Flahr and Barry Hanrahan join him, as well as trusted consultant/advisors Paul Holmgren and Dean Lombardi, as well as members of the scouting staff.

The names will continue to circulate that the Flyers are considering to be the next coach. Yeo probably lasts through this road trip, with the potential for a new coach to be installed next Sunday. Fans want either John Tortorella or Rick Tocchet. And while both will be considered, the Flyers may look elsewhere.

Keep in mind that they still owe a little more than $13 million to Vigneault. Tortorella would cost at least $20 million more for four years. Tocchet, not so much, because he doesn’t have Torts’ track record, but he’s likely to command a salary of about $2 million for let’s say, three years. The Flyers still don’t want  to be paying $20 million for head coaches.

So, they may have to shop even more bargains and hope for success.

This is why I threw out names like St. Louis Blues assistant coach and former Flyer Jim Montgomery (who happened to coin the infamous nickname for his teammates, calling them the Legion of Doom), or former New York Rangers coach David Quinn, or recently-fired Vancouver Canucks coach Travis Green.

Needless to say, it’s almost a sure bet that the Yeo era, which kicked off with such a spectacular loss, will be a fleeting one.

For now, the Flyers have lost nine straight games, and five straight in regulation. They were finally able to score some goals against Colorado, reaching at least four goals for the first time in 17 games. The power play looked more effective and efficient, and when the team got down three goals, like it did Sunday against Tampa, the Flyers showed no signs of quitting, battling back twice to get within a goal, only to let up more scores in the third period.

The effort was better than it was Sunday, which, I guess is a small victory. But you can’t chalk up these games to small victories. The Flyers need to win and win now.

Alas… Here are some quick observations:

1. Ivan Provorov 

Provorov is off to the worst start of his career. He looks lost. He looks completely bereft of confidence. And while he’s the kind of player who will play better with a more reliable defensive partner, the fact is, at this point in his NHL career, he should be the guy lifting up his partner and not the other way around.

His mistakes in his own end and his soft play are really noticeable because he’s on the ice against the other’s team’s best players and the scoring chances against the Flyers are mounting.

The Flyers will give him until Ryan Ellis gets back and the two start playing together to see if there’s an improvement, but if not, the Flyers have to start considering him more as a second pair guy than as a top defenseman.

Speaking of defensemen killing the Flyers….

2. Keith Yandle

Yandle has never been a good defensive player, but boy does he make atrocious gaffes. Like this one:

https://twitter.com/ThreadsOfGoals/status/1468048008600297472

Yandle thought it was going to be whistled icing but the puck clearly hit Scot Laughton’s glove on the way down the ice and the icing was immediately waved off. Yandle’s a veteran. He has to have the hockey sense to keep playing this puck. This is so egregious that the Flyers should say, ‘To hell with his consecutive games record, sit him down.’

The fans notice it too, prompting this tweet of the night:

https://twitter.com/FreeskiMonkey/status/1468046785964695562

In case you missed it, a police dog took the first.

3. Martin Jones

Look, dude is just not a very good goalie. He’s mediocre at best. He did something no other Flyers goalie had ever done in a 60-minute hockey game – he made 43 saves and STILL allowed seven goals.

That’s hard to do.

Either you get shellacked and get pulled, or you make a ton of saves and have a great night. Neither were true for Jones, who probably needed to stop three of the seven Colorado goals, but didn’t.

Here’s one of them:

The NHL record book only shows games in which goalies made at least 45 saves, two more than Jones, so it’s possible there was a 43-save or 44-save performance with at least seven goals allowed that was more recent, but based on the research I could find, the last goalie to have a Martin Jones-type game was Dwayne Roloson, who on Dec. 27, 2010, made 45 saves while allowing seven goals for the New York Islanders in a 7-2 loss to the New York Rangers.

The last one before that was 2007. The last one before that? 1992.  So, you know, last night’s performance happens about four times every 30 years or so.

4. Oskar Lindblom

He finally scored a goal! Everyone was celebrating. Even Yeo, who talked about how important it was for Lindblom, whose issues this season apparently aren’t physical, but are instead mental.

Here’s the (new) coach:

“I mean, obviously Oskar’s been struggling a little bit. Last year it was physical. This year I think it’s been more mental. When I met with Oskar a little bit today, I said, ‘I don’t know where it’s going to go, but let’s give you this opportunity and what we need from you is to be that guy.’  Two years ago when he was having success before he went through everything he had to deal with, he was a guy that everyone wanted to play with because he played the game the right way. He managed the puck, he was strong with the puck, and could throw it away needlessly. He was a strong position, he did all the little things, so that’s what I asked him to do, and I gotta tell you, I know it sucks that we lost this game tonight but I’m so happy that he scored that goal and again, there were some things that we’re going to point to. Listen, we got to pick each other up, support each other and we got to learn and build. For me that was a real positive tonight.”

I bolded those sentences for a reason, but before I explain, here’s the goal, on a nice pass from Travis Konecny:

It’s possible that Lindblom bought himself a little more time on the active roster. I’m told that Fletcher and his inner circle have discussed the possibility of waiving Lindblom, hoping no one will claim him because of his salary situation ($3 million cap hit for both this season and next season) and then he can go to the Phantoms and get his confidence and scoring touch back.

Yeo mentioned how last season he couldn’t keep up because he physically couldn’t play at the NHL level coming off his treatment for Ewing’s sarcoma.

But this season, he is back to the same pre-cancer physical health, and his game isn’t there, which Yeo indicated is the mental side of things for Lindblom.

They were giving him one last chance by putting him on a line with Sean Couturier and Konecny. He produced. Maybe that’s all he needed. We’ll see going forward. If not. If he continues to be a struggling player, the Flyers just might gamble and try to move him through the waiver process.

5. Claude Giroux

Giroux continues to be the Flyers’ best player. At this point in his career, it’s a testament to him but it’s a black mark on the Flyers. That’s because if Giroux is your best player now, then the team isn’t good enough to win enough games to be relevant.

That’s not a knock on Giroux. It’s a knock on the rest of the roster.

Giroux scored two more goals against Colorado. It was his 33rd multi-goal game of his career. He now has nine goals and 12 assists for 21 points in 23 games. All of which lead the Flyers. His second goal also tied Bobby Clarke for the most power play points in Flyers franchise history (33 points).

He’ll reach 1,000 games as a Flyer in March (barring injury), but will he be willing to waive his no movement clause to be traded elsewhere for a shot at the Stanley Cup if the Flyers are still floundering and out of the race at that point?

I’ll tell you, he’d look real good on that Colorado team they lost to Monday.

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