Flyers Fire Coach Craig Berube

After a disappointing season where the team missed the playoffs — and was not that close to making them — the Flyers have fired coach Craig Berube. The team announced the dismissal in a short press release on its website.

Berube was hired three games into the 2013-14 season, when the Flyers fired Peter Laviolette. He had previously spent six years as a Flyers assistant. The Flyers rode a midseason surge under Berube to the playoffs that season, and lost in the first round in seven games to the Rangers. New York eventually won the Eastern Conference.

But this season didn’t go as well. By January, almost every beat writer was speculating Berube might be fired soon. The Flyers were inconsistent. They would play well against good teams and poorly against bad ones. They couldn’t win on the road. They couldn’t score. They couldn’t kill penalties. Really, it was more than inconsistency.

It was obvious the firing was coming. #FireBerube was a popular Twitter hashtag. After the season, Vinny Lecavalier said he didn’t enjoy playing under him. Just yesterday, Inquirer beat writer Sam Carchidi speculated about possible replacements even though Berube hadn’t been canned yet.

Fans are, um, already excited.

Berube finished with a 75-58-28, which gives him a winning percentage of .528 in NHL terms but actually means he won less than half his games. “I just didn’t feel he got enough out of our group collectively,” General Manager Ron Hextall told the media today.

Hextall says he wants a coach by the NHL Draft, which begins June 26th. The next coach will be the team’s seventh since the start of the 2000-01 season. The Flyers have not won a Stanley Cup since 1975.