Craig Berube ousted despite players' support

If Steve Mason meant what he said, this should not have happened. If the goalie's support Monday of coach Craig Berube was sincere, then there was no good reason for Flyers general manager Ron Hextall to do what he did Friday.

What Hextall did, of course, was the same thing that all those Flyers GMs before him did with alarming regularity. He fired the coach after one full season behind the bench.

A year ago at this time, Berube was a coach of the year candidate after imposing the same will on his players that allowed him to play 17 seasons in the NHL with an extremely limited skill set. Berube took over from Peter Laviolette three games into the 2013-14 season and led the Flyers to a spot in the playoffs despite a dreadful 1-7 start.

That team took the far more talented New York Rangers to seven games before being bounced out of the first round of the playoffs. The Rangers went on to the Stanley Cup Finals and earned the Presidents' Trophy with a league-leading 113 points this season.

The Rangers got better this season. The Flyers, by design, did not. When Hextall replaced Paul Holmgren as the GM, he said there would be no quick fix. Given the constraints of the team's salary-cap situation, there was no way to get better fast anyway.

We knew going into the year that the defense, in multiple ways, was going to be a problem and the Flyers lived down to expectations, allowing the fourth-most goals in the Eastern Conference and the ninth-most in hockey. We also knew that scoring depth beyond the first line was a problem and it was a huge one.

If there was a reason to fire Berube, it was because of his multiple mishandlings of Mason. The first one being when he rushed his top goaltender back into action from a knee injury right after the all-star break and the second being the undeserved toss under the bus after pulling Mason in a loss at Calgary last month.

That's not the way to treat the best player on your team, but over the course of a long, difficult season, it's inevitable that even the best coaches and best players will make ill-advised decisions and remarks. All that matters afterward is whether the players and coach can move forward together. Mason said Monday that he could.

"Guys really enjoy playing for him," Mason told reporters Monday.

He added that the players wanted Berube back.

Vinny Lecavalier, on the other hand, made it clear that he wanted out if Berube returned for another season. The veteran forward was a healthy scratch 17 times this season, which is a pretty good indication Berube believes Lecavalier's five-year, $22.5 million contract was a mistake.

The coach was just pointing out the obvious. The Flyers, at least for now, have decided to move on with Lecavalier and without Berube.

Now move along. There is nothing new to see here.