Could the Flyers hire a Martin St-Louis-style coach?

Martin St-Louis is working well in Montreal while never being a head coach anywhere else in his life. Could the Flyers pull off a similar move?

The Philadelphia Flyers are still playing hockey games but the one of the main concerns on everyone’s mind that pays attention to this team isn’t what they are seeing on the ice, but it is who will be behind the bench this fall.

John Tortorella was sent packing, Brad Shaw was named interim head coach, and now the search really begins for the Flyers front office. Above everything, this hiring could represent a whole lot of things like moving into the new era of Flyers Hockey where they want to not finish towards the bottom of the overall standings. But, it will also be general manager Danny Briere’s and president of hockey operations Keith Jones’s first significant off-ice hire since taking the reins over two years ago.

The veteran Tortorella was already a part of this organization and was merely adopted by Briere and Jones as a head coach they felt comfortable keeping around as they tried to turn this whole thing around. But now they need a new coach to lead this team and this hiring could be in the image of what Briere and Jones wants this team to represent and what they want this collection of players to look like on the ice.

We have already gone over a couple of realistic possibilities to replace Tortorella this fall. They all have some amount of head coaching experience either in the NHL or with one of the best teams in the league they call home. But what if the Flyers were to make a hire that mirrored another team who is making a pivot from lottery contender, to a team in the playoffs?

When the Montreal Canadiens hired legendary NHL winger Martin St-Louis to be the new head coach, many from the outside sort of scoffed. St-Louis was a very good hockey player, but outside of being a low-level consultant for the Columbus Blue Jackets, the highest level of anything hockey related he did after retiring, was being an assistant coach on his son’s U13 Triple-A team. Just a classic thing a hockey dad does, but he was then just thrust into the head coaching role for the most storied franchise in the National Hockey League.

And … he is doing fairly well. There were a couple of rough patches, but things have clearly gotten much better than they previously were in Montreal. St-Louis lets his skilled players play. Namely, Cole Caufield exploded offensively under the veteran NHLer as his head coach and the team is playing a more rambunctious brand of hockey. Now, in his third full seasons as Canadiens head coach, they are fighting tooth and nail to get into a playoff spot and turn a massive corner into respectability with some of the best prospects in the hockey world coming down the pipe.

Naturally, all of this makes us think if the Flyers could pull off a similar thing. It would be diverging from the path Philadelphia knows well — always getting a coach that has been around the league for a while and is an established name behind the bench — but it could pay off as this team wants to move into the next level.

All of this is hypothetical, of course. We know the Flyers too well that it feels like this is a slim chance, but if we are thinking that the front office wants to explore every option for this role, then why not?

First, what would a similar hire look like? St-Louis is a player who had to fight for every minute he got in the NHL. Not some naturally gifted wunderkind like an Eric Lindros or Wayne Gretzky trying to relate to players behind the bench, but someone who knows how to reach that next level of performance through dedication to his craft. He of course had minimal experience so this hypothetical new coach would bring fresh ideas or a new approach to the game overall. And maybe more than anything, young enough to fit a timeline with a team and grow with the prospects the Flyers are currently starting to pile up.

Now, with all that in mind, should we now see if Mike Richards wants to come down from his cottage with his horses up in Kenora, Ont.? Or, should we reach overseas and maybe a former centerman like Olli Jokinen who is cutting his teeth as a head coach in the Finnish Liiga and the SHL, to make the immediate jump? What is Kimmo Timonen up to? Maybe Patrick Sharp wants to stop being just a consultant for the Flyers and could throw his hat in the ring?

Anyways, we have no idea who a specific former player that has fought hard to be a very good in the NHL, who has interest taking this position, could even be. But, if the Flyers truly want to go away from the standard set of Hockey Men to run this team, and let some players like Matvei Michkov let his offense run wild, then maybe they down a not-well-traveled path.

Maybe just hire a guy everyone likes.