You'd think it would be getting difficult to defend Ed Snider's hand-appointed
hockey director, the man who has had five head coaches and one very public
battle with his franchise player in the past three years.
Not so, says the Flyers chairman. Not when it comes to Bob Clarke,
the guy Snider considers the "best general manager in the league."
"Bob knew he was going to draw heat for this," Snider told ESPN.com Monday
night. "Sure, there are dangers in the way he's changed coaches like he has,
but by the same token, I don't worry about him or us taking personal hits for
that. Bob could have taken the easy way out and not done anything yet. But he
saw he had to make a decision. And he made it."
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I hate to say this, but a lot of nights this year, I'd watch our team and I found the game boring. Even if we won. You can say our building has been quiet because we have quiet fans, but that's not true. It's because we've been putting them to sleep on a lot of nights. ” |
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— Flyers chairman Ed Snider on the Flyers play this season |
Clarke says he made it in the wee hours last Sunday morning, firing Craig
Ramsay after just 28 games this season, despite his club having fashioned a
12-12-4 record to that point. And that's with Eric Lindros living in Toronto, John LeClair
living on the injured list, and Mark Recchi still trying to find himself after a concussion.
Still, Clarke saw the need to make his fifth coaching change since June
1997, when he canned Terry Murray – after Murray had taken the Flyers to the Stanley Cup finals.
All Ramsay did was take over for cancer victim Roger Neilson last Feb. 20,
go 16-6-1-2 down the stretch to capture an Eastern Conference title, beat
Buffalo and Pittsburgh in the playoffs, lose in seven games to New Jersey in
the conference finals, then come back this year and go .500 with an
injury-strewn lineup.
That's all.
"Hey, Lou Lamoriello fired his coach with 12 games to go," said Snider,
referring to the sudden firing of ex-Devils coach Robbie Ftorek last season.
"And that was a guy who Lou had brought up in the system. And then they go
and win the Stanley Cup. It's tough to make a move like that when you have
to, but Lou Lamoriello was admitting that he'd made a mistake, and he
corrected it. Bob realized that he had to do the same thing.
"You could say that a (.500) record with all the injuries we've had was
actually pretty good, but it was more the way we were playing and not our
wins and losses that motivated this. Look, I think Craig Ramsay is a dog-gone
good coach and a great guy. I don't want to make it look like we're
(criticizing) him. But the Flyers don't take pride in being the least
penalized team in the league.
"It's a tough business we're in now," Snider added. "You charge people the
amount of money that we do for tickets, then people are going to demand more.
If you're playing well and loaded with injuries and still trying hard, then
they'll stick with you. But our fans didn't like the style of play we were
giving them."
|  | | Snider knew Bob Clarke would take heat for firing Craig Ramsay 28 games into the season. |
And neither did Ed Snider, the biggest Flyer fan of all and a proponent of
the players who helped him build a franchise -- Bob Clarke and new coach Bill Barber.
"I hate to say this," said Snider, "but a lot of nights this year, I'd
watch our team and I found the game boring. Even if we won. You can say our
building has been quiet because we have quiet fans, but that's not true. It's
because we've been putting them to sleep on a lot of nights.
"But I don't think we'll be that now. Billy's going to change our style.
We're going to be an exciting team."
Actually, they already have been. With the Flyers and Clarke, there's
never a dull moment. Now it's up to another heroic remnant from the Broad St.
Bullies days to carry that excitement over onto the ice.
"I will coach desperate and I expect our players to play
desperate, because we have to," Barber said. "If you look at our division and conference,
we've got a battle on our hands and I expect the players to play desperate,
and we as a staff have to coach that way. It's what I believe the Flyers
tradition is -- play with urgency at all times and at all costs."
Just like it used to be.
For Barber, there was a sterling 12-year career that ended prematurely with injury. And the two interim assistant coaching stints in the minor leagues. There were years of front-office positions. There was another minor league
appointment, this one a head coaching assignment. That lasted four years,
resulted in one Calder Cup championship for the Phantoms and almost another.
And still Bill Barber was passed over for the Flyers' job three times by
Clarke.
He said that had more to do with timing than anything. That Barber was
still too green when he gave the job to Wayne Cashman in the summer of 1997.
That Neilson was the perfect fit for the situation when he felt he had to
"demote" Cashman the following March. And when Neilson fell ill, Ramsay was
right there.
"When Roger left we couldn't bring in a permanent guy at that stage," said
Clarke. "And then Rammer did so well ? we thought he'd be the right guy.
"You want to make sure when you hire a coach that he's been through ups
and downs; all those things a head coach is going to have to go through. He's
got to learn how to handle them. Now, Billy is prepared."
There is some thought that it's Snider who went to Clarke in recent days
and convinced him that Barber was ready. But whether there's
validity to that rumor or not, a larger issue is whether the players are
ready for Barber.
"Even if you're making a million dollars, every once in a while you need a
kick in the pants to wake you up," Keith Primeau said. "Billy hasn't, as of
yet, overstepped any boundary in that regard, and I'm the first to admit that
at times you need it. I don't think it's a bad thing."
So get ready all you highly paid veteran Flyers who helped Clarke make
this latest coaching decision. There's a new, though very familiar, yahoo in
town. Barber should stir things up, and in Snider's view, also justify
Clarke's decision to make yet another coaching change. That Flyers' payroll now
has three or four head coaches still on it, and there could be more where
that came from.
But maybe with a little luck, Barber will be able to delay the next search
for a while. He's eager. He's hungry. He's prepared. He's a risk taker. And
he's a Broad St. Bully, which around here never hurts.
"He's proven himself and paid his dues," Snider said of Barber. "Billy's
been basically a Flyer for life."
Rob Parent covers the NHL for the Delaware County (Pa.) Times. His NHL East column appears every week on ESPN.com.
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ALSO SEE
Parent: Broad St. Bullies outdated?
Cliff Ronning: Speed compensates for (lack of) size
Keith Jones: The Flyers' game today
Barry Trotz: How we compete
Pete Weber: The need for speed
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