Dear The Flyers, Don't You Dare Let Anybody Else Hire Joel Quenneville. Do You Hear Me?
So here’s the deal–I have to be in the car for about 8 hours today so I’m going to make this blog pretty quick. But that’s actually the point of this blog because it shouldn’t be long. It shouldn’t be complicated. It should be the easiest decision in the history of decisions for the Philadelphia Flyers to fire Dave Hakstol and replace him with Joel Quenneville, and the fact that I need to write this blog in the first place is actually pretty astonishing. For starters, Quenneville has already said that he’d be willing to start coaching again as early as this current season.
Sportsnet – “He’s certainly ready and willing to coach again as early as this season,” Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos said Saturday during the Headlines segment on Hockey Night in Canada. “He’s going to enjoy his family time but when teams are ready to talk he’s ready to listen.
“When teams are ready to talk he’s ready to listen”. Uhhhh this is Joel Quenneville we’re talking about here, people. I’m pretty sure teams were ready to talk the exact moment the news broke that the Blackhawks were canning him. And with the Kings already firing their head coach and the St. Louis Blues probably sending Mike Yeo packing soon, I’m sure that Q’s phone has already been pretty busy over the past week. The longer the Flyers wait to make something happen, the longer the line gets. And here’s another line from that Sportsnet article that makes me think that Philly would be the perfect destination for JoJo Quenn.
Kypreos added that Quenneville is not interested in taking over a team that is in the midst of or considering a rebuild, like the situation Babcock signed up for when he took over as bench boss with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2015.
Here’s the thing–the Flyers aren’t in the midst of a rebuild. They are still a couple pieces away from being legitimate Stanley Cup contenders, but they are not in a rebuild. They have their core of Giroux, Voracek, Simmonds, Couturier, Ghost and Provorov. They have the young pieces to keep them going late in the season. The only thing they’re missing right now is Carter Hart and a few other defensemen. But as soon as Hart is put into the lineup and the Flyers don’t have inconsistency issues between the pipes anymore, they are ready to go on a run. So Quenneville could have this team ready to go on that run as soon as next season.
Now the article goes on to talk about Quenneville being an expensive hire considering he still has another year left on his contract at $6 million. But the Flyers are owned by Comcast. I can’t imagine they give a shit about $6 million. Considering how much I get charged per month for cable and internet, I’m sure that my bill alone could pay half of Joel Quenneville’s salary. So that shouldn’t be an issue at all. The biggest issue right now facing the Flyers in regards to locking up Joel Quenneville before somebody else swoops him up first is Ron Hextall. For some bizarre reason, Hexy still hasn’t seen enough to tell him that Dave Hakstol isn’t the right man for this job. For some reason, he still thinks there is some hope in this guy despite literally everything he’s done so far screaming the opposite. He doesn’t get the best out of this lineup. Young stars like Ivan Provorov are actually starting to regress this year despite the fact that Hakstol is supposedly this “young development” wizard. It’s time to move on from him and this weird era of Flyers hockey where the team has no idea what direction they are heading in. It is time to make the most out of the few remaining years left in this Giroux/Voracek window and make something happen.
You want to know who can make something happen? A man who has already won a Stanley Cup in Philadelphia before.
Make it happen, Hexy. And if Ron Hextall isn’t man enough to pull the trigger, then somebody at Comcast needs to step up and force his hand. Do the damn thing. Do it for the team. Do it for the fans. Do it for the entire city.