Chuck Fletcher Explains Choice Of Going With Vigneault Instead Of Younger Coach.

"Philadelphia Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher decided to go the opposite route of former GM Ron Hextall when he hired Alain Vigneault as the team's new head coach. Vigneault has loads of NHL experience and two trips to the Stanley Cup Finals under his belt.It's not like Fletcher hasn't done it before though as he promoted both Todd Richards and Mike Yeo from the AHL to head coach of the Minnesota Wild during Fletcher's tenure in Minnesota. The Flyers GM explained why he didn't decide to do that with Scott Gordon this time around despite Gordon doing pretty good under extremely tough circumstances. "It's harder to predict the future of unproven coaches," Fletcher said after introducing the well-traveled and NHL-seasoned Vigneault to the media last month. "... It's much easier to predict the future performance of proven coaches. That's part of it. …
""Sometimes, you can overthink things, you can interview a lot of people and try to maybe find the next diamond in the rough. Sometimes, you can. More often, it doesn't work when you go the unproven route."It's hard to land a head coach with good proven NHL winning record, Fletcher couldn't pass it up. "It's hard to get these guys," Fletcher had said of Vigneault that day last month. ""There are successful coaches coming from every area of hockey. Some come out of college. Some come out of the minor leagues. Some come out of junior.
""But when you look at some of these proven high-end guys, you have a pretty good idea of what you're going to get. And there's not a lot of guessing. They have a proven track record of what they've done well.
""I think it's such a great commodity to get.""
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