I don't follow the Flyers all that closely, but it struck me as a knee-jerk reaction to fire him after a bed 10 game stretch. Then I looked at the numbers and my suspicions were confirmed: dude got the shaft.
Philly opened the year 10 wins in their first 15 games. Emery was the toast of the town and it looked like they'd be challenging for tops in the division (and conference). The tailspin began shortly thereafter, however - starting November 20th, the Flyers would go on to lose 8 of their next 10 games, culminating in Stevens getting dismissed.
There's lots of reasons he didn't deserve it:
1.) The Flyers underlying numbers are solid. They are the third best team at generating shots on net in the league (32.2/game) and have a positive shot differential (+4.2). Glancing at behind the net shows that a vast majority of the club is in the black in terms of corsi, meaning the puck was generally moving in the right direction for Philly under Stevens.
2.) Ten games seems like a large sample, especially when you're losing, but in reality it's minuscule. Randomness can have sizable effect during such a brief period and the true problem was the Flyers were at the bad end of the percentages distribution curve. Consider in that 10 game span, Philadelphia frequently outshot the bad guys but only scored more than 3 goals once. Behind the net shows that no regular skater currently has an on-ice shooting percentage above 10% (around the league mean). To put that in perspective, the Flames currently have 8 guys at 10%+. They were getting pucks on net, but they weren't going in. The hockey gods can be fickle.
In addition, Scott Reynolds recently noted that Ray Emery had one of the worst SH SV% in the league (.803) which is what was bringing his overall SV% down. Now, some of that may have been the fact that he was apparently playing through groin problems, but SH SV% is notoriously prone to wide swings about the mean thanks to sample size issues. Chances are, his SH SV% would have climbed back up to respectability eventually as a matter of course.
It's funny that a coach who guided a team to a 99 point season with a +26 GD just last year can get the axe because his injured goalie couldn't stop a beachball on the PK and pucks stopped going in for his skaters for 10 games. The truth of the matter is, the Flyers are actually a pretty good club and it's a good bet they would have righted the ship anyways. As it stands, the inevitable correction will come and Laviolette will be cheered as savior.
