Craig Berube out as Flyers coach

The Flyers continued their coaching carousel Friday.

Craig Berube was fired after the Flyers failed to make the playoffs in his first full season with the team. The Flyers went 33-31-18, including a 10-20-11 mark on the road. Overall, they were just 8-18 in games that went beyond regulation, and 3-11 in shootouts.

General manager Ron Hextall, Berube's teammate during five of his seasons with the Flyers, said the dismissal was not an easy decision.

"Craig Berube is a good friend of mine," Hextall said. "He's a terrific man, but the professional side of this, I have an obligation to the organization to do what I think is best. Obviously there's a personal side here. A man lost his job here, and no one obviously likes that."

The Flyers will have their third coach in the last three seasons - and 19th since the franchise started in 1967-68.

Reached by phone, Berube said he would "rather not comment right now."

Hextall said he would like to hire a new coach before the June 26 draft. He said he was looking for someone who could "take this group to another level, not only short term but long term."

In sorting through the candidates, Hextall said that he would not "fast-track" the process, and that he wouldn't make a decision for at least two weeks. He said that in a "perfect world" you look for someone with NHL coaching experience, "but that's not mandatory."

Hextall, who is in his first year as general manager, said he talked to club president Paul Holmgren and club chairman Ed Snider about the Berube matter, and added that "whatever decision I made, they were comfortable with."

Berube, according to Hextall, was "stoic" when informed of the news.

"I believe Craig is an NHL coach and will go on to be an NHL coach," said Hextall, adding he was "fine" with Berube's defense-first system.

When he had season-ending interviews with each player, Hextall said, he did not ask any of them about the coach.

"Because it's a feel," he said. ". . .I don't think it's fair to the coach, because certain players really like the coach and certain players don't."

Hextall said "squeezing the most out of your team" is what he wants in a coach. "And that's the part that I just felt like, in the end, it wasn't enough."

Berube, 49, nicknamed "the Chief," is a no-nonsense coach who wasn't shy about benching high-priced players if they underachieved. He compiled a 75-58-28 record (.553 points percentage) in a stint that lasted a little less than two years.

At his season-ending news conference Wednesday, Hextall said he needed more time to decide whether Berube would return for the final year of his contract.

"It's just a process I went through," he said in a conference call Friday. "I wanted to make the right decision. Once I kind of put all the facts together, and in the end you go with your gut."

He said he made the decision Thursday night and informed Berube on Friday morning.

"In a nutshell, I didn't feel like he got enough out of our group collectively," Hextall said.

Flyers assistants Joey Mullen (who consistently has the Flyers' power play among the league's elite), Ian Laperriere, and Gord Murphy are in limbo. Their fate will be decided after a new coach is hired and talks with them and Hextall.

Last season, Berube replaced Peter Laviolette, who was fired after the Flyers lost their first three games. The Flyers went 42-27-10 the rest of the way and took the New York Rangers, a team that eventually reached the Stanley Cup Finals, to seven games in the opening playoff round.

This season, Laviolette directed Nashville to a 47-25-10 record and a playoff spot in his first year as the Predators coach.

When then-general manager Holmgren fired Laviolette early in the 2013-14 season, he said, "I'm not going to let the players off the hook. Things have to get better, and they will."

They did in Berube's first year, but the Flyers slipped back into a malaise this season, losing five of their first six games and never fully recovering. They started 8-13-4, giving them their second-lowest 25-game win total since 1970-71.

Before becoming the head coach, Berube spent seven seasons as a Flyers assistant and was also head coach of the AHL Phantoms. A resident of New Hope, Berube just finished his 18th year in the organization, including seven seasons as a player with the Flyers.

In 17 NHL seasons as an enforcer, Berube accumulated 3,149 penalty minutes, the seventh-highest total in league history.

Ironically, when Berube and Hextall sent Jay Rosehill to the minors before the season, it meant the Flyers, once known as the Broad Street Bullies, did not have a heavyweight enforcer for the first time since the early 1970s.

The Flyers changed their style, but it didn't prevent them from changing coaches.

Again.