Power Ranking Every Coach in Philadelphia Flyers History

On the verge of entering their 45th season in the NHL, the Philadelphia Flyers have hit their share of the good, the bad and the ugly as one of hockey's most historic expansion teams. 

In all, seventeen coaches have attempted to lead the Flyers to the promised land, though only one has managed to do it.  This list ranks the successes (and failures) of every man to stand behind the Flyers' bench.

17. Terry Simpson (84 Games, 1993-94)

In his lone season as the Flyers head coach, Simpson failed to make the playoffs and managed only 80 points despite significant contributions from Mark Recchi, Eric Lindros and Mikael Renberg.

While some coaches have had worse track records, Simpson should have been able to do more with the talent he was given.

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16. Bill Dineen (140 Games, 1991-93)

Dineen, pictured here with his son Kevin, joined the Flyers in the middle of the ’91-’92 season and had a winning percentage above .500, but was unable to drive the team to the playoffs after their slow start. 

His record would dip below .500 the next season and the team would again miss the playoffs.  Dineen’s time with the Flyers was forgettable, ending with an even .500 record and zero playoff games.

Photo courtesy of flyers.nhl.com

15. Vic Stasiuk (154 Games, 1969-71)

Stasiuk was the Flyers’ second head coach and the first under whom the young team missed the playoffs. 

In his second season, he was able to coach the team to 28 wins and made the playoffs, but the Flyers were eliminated in the first round and he would be replaced the following season.

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14. Wayne Cashman (61 Games, 1997-98)

Cashman’s record, while short, was an impressive 32-20-9, though that may have been expected from the team defending a Conference Championship.

Despite the record, the front office believed the Flyers needed a different coach behind the wheel and hired Roger Neilson midseason.  In recognition of Cashman’s contributions, he was not fired but relegated to assistant coach. 

His 61 games in Philadelphia were his only games as a head coach in the NHL, but Cashman had great success in the assistant role before and after his time in the City of Brotherly Love.

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13. Bob McCammon (218 Games, 1978-79 and 1982-84)

McCammon had two coaching stints with the Flyers, and in both cases he was following in the footsteps of highly successful predecessors. 

In the regular season, McCammon was solid, with a winning percentage of .550 or greater in each of his four seasons (two full seasons, two shortened seasons). 

However, McCammon’s downfall was his playoff record.  In three appearances, McCammon managed to win just one game, preventing him from rising any higher on this list.

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12. Paul Holmgren (264 Games, 1988-91)

Holmgren’s coaching career got off to a great start when Holmgren, despite a .500 winning percentage in 1988-89, coached the team to a surprising Conference Finals appearance. 

However, it was all downhill from there, as the Flyers missed the playoffs in his second and third seasons as head coach and he was fired 24 games into his fourth year.

When thinking of Holmgren’s Flyers career as a whole, his coaching experience proved more forgettable than his time as a player and as General Manager.

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11. Craig Ramsay (28 Games, 2000)

Officially, Ramsay’s coaching record is a blip on the Flyers’ radar:  28 games and a 12-12-4 record. 

However, in early 2000 Roger Neilson took a medical leave to treat terminal cancer, allowing Ramsay to take over the team.  Ramsay went 16-8-1 to finish the regular season and coached the team to the Eastern Conference Finals, with all of those numbers officially going to Neilson’s coaching record.  That season saw Lindros get injured and stripped of his captaincy and Ramsay was able to coach the Flyers to a No. 1 seed on the last day of the season.

After officially being given the team before the 2000-01 season, Ramsay got off to a mediocre start and he would be replaced a mere 28 games into his official Flyers coaching career.

10. John Stevens (263 Games, 2006-09)

Mild-mannered John Stevens was handed one of the worst Flyers teams in history eight games into the 2006-07 season.  He and Paul Holmgren would step into the head coach and GM roles vacated by Ken Hitchcock and Bobby Clarke in October.

Stevens took over a young team that only managed to put together 56 points that year, but he would turn the team around the next season thanks in part to a makeover by Paul Holmgren.  The 2007-08 Flyers would amass 95 points and make a dramatic run to the Eastern Conference Finals. 

Stevens would have another successful year in 2008-09, though the Penguins would beat the team in the first round.  Ultimately, the team became stagnant and inconsistent under Stevens’ quiet coaching style and he would be replaced after a slump in 2009.

9. Keith Allen (150 Games, 1967-69)

Allen’s record alone is unimpressive, but he deserves recognition for what that record meant.

As the first head coach in Flyers history, he exceeded expectations by posting a better record than any of the other five expansion teams to enter the NHL in 1967.  He managed to beat each of the Original Six teams at least one time that season and made the playoffs in the Flyers’ first year in the league.

Ultimately, Allen would be less successful in his second season and would serve as the team’s GM from 1969-1983.

Photo courtesy of flyers.nhl.com

8. Bill Barber (136 Games, 2000-02)

Bill Barber took over for Craig Ramsay in the 2000 season when Ramsay failed to live up to his success in Roger Neilson’s place the year before. 

Barber ignited the team and the Flyers would earn 100 points that year, and Barber was honored with the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s Best Head Coach.  In 2001-02, the Flyers would win the division behind a 97 point performance.

Barber’s ultimate downfall came from his struggles in the postseason.  He failed to win a playoff series, and the team only managed two goals in five games against the Senators in the 2002 playoffs.  That offseason, Barber and the Flyers parted ways until he returned as a scout in 2008.

7. Roger Neilson (185 Games, 1998-2000)

As mentioned in Craig Ramsay’s slide, some of Neilson’s numbers are technically attributed to him despite the fact that Ramsay was behind the bench during those games.

The late Roger Neilson took over for Wayne Cashman in 1998 and coached the team to the playoffs, losing in the first round.  In Neilson’s first full season, the Flyers managed to accumulate 93 points but were again eliminated in the first round. 

1999-2000 would prove to be one of the most tumultuous years in Flyers history, between Lindros’s issues with the front office and the death of Dmitri Tertyshny in the offseason.  Despite the distractions, the Flyers were first in the Conference at the All-Star break, just weeks before Neilson had to step down to treat the cancer that would eventually take his life prematurely.

The Flyers would make the Conference Finals under Ramsay, but many fans attribute an equal amount of the team’s success to the lasting impact that Neilson made over the course of the year.

6. Peter Laviolette (139 Games, 2009-Present)

The Flyers’ current head coach has already coached the team through some of the most interesting times in Flyers history.

Laviolette was hired in late 2009 to light a fire under a struggling team, but the team would drop to 14^th in the conference before turning the season around.  Highlights of his first year as coach included a playoff spot earned in a shootout on the last day, a 3-0 comeback against the Boston Bruins and an improbable Stanley Cup Finals appearance as a No. 7 seed.

In 2010-11, Laviolette’s Flyers finished with 106 points and an Atlantic Division title, nearly winning the conference.  Despite the regular season success, the team was eliminated in the second round at the hands of the Boston Bruins.

Media speculation throughout the season suggested that captain Mike Richards refused to talk with Laviolette and rumors of locker room tension and the insubordination of younger players was frequently cited as the reason for the team’s struggles.  Richards and cohort Jeff Carter were shipped out of Philadelphia in June and the team was centered around players more receptive to Laviolette’s aggressive and pro-accountability coaching style.

5. Ken Hitchcock (254 Games, 2002-06)

Hired after Bill Barber’s playoff failure in 2002, Ken Hitchcock was expected to make the Flyers one of the toughest competitors in hockey, recover from the drama of the Lindros years and ultimately win a Stanley Cup. 

Two out of three ain’t bad.

Hitchcock coached the team to three consecutive 100 point seasons and an Atlantic Division title, and took the Tampa Bay Lightning to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals in 2003-04. 

After the lockout, Hitchcock managed to coach a big, slow team to another playoff appearance in 2005-06 despite the NHL’s new, faster look.  But the Flyers would be eliminated in the first round by the Buffalo Sabres, and it all came crashing down the next season as the team started 1-6-1 and Hitchcock was fired.

Despite an inglorious ending, Hitchcock won 131 regular season games for the Flyers, fourth-most in franchise history and made the Flyers a dominant force in the “old” NHL.

4. Terry Murray (212 Games, 1994-97)

Terry Murray is best remembered for coaching one of the best groups of Flyers since the 1970s, starting with Eric Lindros and including the Legion of Doom line.

Murray’s Flyers won the Atlantic Division in his first two seasons, including a 1994-95 season that was shortened to 48 regular season games by a lockout.  The team nearly won the division again in 1996-97, but were beaten out by the New Jersey Devils.

That season, the Flyers made a dramatic playoff run, winning their first three series in five games each.  The favored Flyers were ultimately swept in the Stanley Cup Finals by the Detroit Red Wings, and Murray’s coaching style appeared erratic and intimidated in the Finals as he shuffled between goalies Ron Hextall and Garth Snow during the series and described his team’s circumstances as a “choking situation” after Game 3.

Most Flyers fans believe that it was not the fact that Murray lost, but the way he lost that cost him his job that offseason despite three successful years behind the bench.

3. Pat Quinn (262 Games, 1979-82)

Pat Quinn took over for Bob McCammon in the 1978-79 season, winning eighteen of the 30 games he coached that year and taking the Flyers to the second round of the playoffs. 

Quinn’s greatest year as Flyers head coach came in his first full season, when the team won 48 of its 80 games and at one point went 35 straight without being beaten, a record that stands until this day.  That season, the team went to the Stanley Cup Finals, only to be upset by the New York Islanders (their first of four consecutive Stanley Cups). 

The following season, Quinn’s team would win 41 games and be eliminated in the second round of the playoffs, and despite 34 wins in 72 games in 1981-82, Quinn would be replaced before season’s end.

Quinn would finish his Flyers career with a .630 regular season winning percentage and a .564 postseason winning percentage, and in 1980 became the second Flyers’ head coach to win the Jack Adams Award.  This impressive resume is enough to make The Big Irishman one of the three greatest coaches in Flyers history.

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2. Mike Keenan (320 Games, 1984-88)

Mike Keenan took the reins from Bob McCammon after the 193-84 Flyers were swept out of the playoffs by the Washington Capitals.  Immediately Keenan took a good team and made it great, amassing 53 wins in each of his first two seasons.

In his first year, Keenan took the Flyers through the New York Islanders, who had made the Stanley Cup each of the previous five seasons, on their way to a Stanley Cup Final.  Ultimately, the Edmonton Oilers would get the best of the Flyers, winning the first of four championships in five years, but Keenan won the Jack Adams Award (pictured here) for his efforts.

Following a second 53 win season, the Flyers’ regular season success dropped slightly as the team won 46 games in 1986-87, but the team made another Stanley Cup appearance, losing a heartbreaking seven game series to the Oilers.

Keenan finished his tenure with the Flyers having accumulated three 100 point seasons, two Stanley Cup Finals appearance and a Coach of the Year Award, and he is currently fifth all-time in wins by an NHL coach. 

He would go on to earn the only piece of hardware he lacked, the Stanley Cup, with the New York Rangers in 1994.

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1. Fred Shero (554 Games, 1971-78)

Given that four coaches on this list led the Flyers to the Stanley Cup, and all four failed to bring it to Broad Street, the top spot could only go to the only Flyers coach to ever hoist Lord Stanley’s hardware.

And of course, he did it twice.

Fred Shero led the Flyers to become the first team outside of the Original Six to win a championship, though the road would not be easy.  In his first season, the team managed only 66 points, seven fewer than the previous year.  Shero reworked his coaching philosophy and hired the NHL’s first full-time assistant coach, and the Flyers made the playoffs the following season.

In 1973-74, the Flyers would finish with 112 points and 50 wins, earning Shero the Jack Adams Award in its first year of existence.  In the second round, Shero’s Flyers would defeat the New York Rangers 4-3, the first time an expansion team had ever beaten an Original Six team in a playoff series. 

Shero’s Flyers would go on to beat Bobby Orr and the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Finals, giving Philadelphia its first NHL Championship and establishing the team as a force to be reckoned with. 

The team would repeat under Shero in 1974-75 and would return to the Finals only to lose to Montreal in 1975-76, the same year that the team defeated the Soviet National Team 4-1 and earned themselves consideration as the greatest team in the world, largely thanks to Shero’s innovative and aggressive coaching.

When all was said and done, Shero would leave Philadelphia in 1978 with 308 regular season wins and 48 playoff wins.  His two Stanley Cups are the only two in Flyers history and after his first year in Philadelphia, he never failed to make the second round of the playoffs.

No matter the criteria, Fred Shero is undoubtedly the greatest coach in Philadelphia Flyers’ history.

Photo courtesy of Philly.com