Rod Brind’Amour Shows Why Flyers Should Have No Interest

If Philadelphia Flyers fans are enviously watching other teams playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs this year, that’s understandable. After all, the Flyers are rebuilding and are generally very far away from being a team that can make it to the second round or further. But if you’re looking to Rod Brind’Amour and his Carolina Hurricanes, you have the wrong idea.

Brind’Amour, 53, spent nine years with the Flyers during his outstanding 20-year playing career. He did win the Stanley Cup with the Hurricanes as a player, but he hasn’t shown that he can do it as a coach.

Some Flyers fans have this fantasy of Brind’Amour returning to Philadelphia and replacing John Tortorella as the Flyers’ head coach, particularly due to his success as a coach in the regular season. Brind’Amour has won no fewer than 52 games in each of his last three seasons behind Carolina’s bench.

If the expectation is that Brind’Amour elevates the Flyers to a level that makes them a perennial playoff team that can win the Stanley Cup, those hopes are misplaced. The Hurricanes are currently down 3-0 to the New York Rangers in the Stanley Cup playoffs, putting them one game away from getting swept in the second round.

If the Rangers sweep Brind’Amour and the Hurricanes, Carolina will have gotten swept two years in a row. Here’s how the postseason has treated the Hurricanes under Brind’Amour: swept in the conference finals in 2019, lost in five games in the first round of 2020, lost in five games in the second round of 2021, lost in seven games in the second round of 2022, swept in the conference finals of 2023, and on track to get swept in the second round of 2024.

Brind’Amour’s teams tend to run out of gas fairly quickly in the postseason, and while he is absolved of the responsibility of building the team, the Hurricanes’ results always come back to him. Should the Hurricanes get swept by the Rangers, Brind’Amour will be exactly .500 in the Stanley Cup playoffs as a head coach; 36 wins and 36 losses.

While Tortorella is well under .500 in the playoffs himself (.467, to be exact), the Flyers aren’t employing him to win a championship—not right now, anyway. And in that regard, Tortorella has a Stanley Cup to his name as a coach, while Brind’Amour does not. Changing coaches for the sake of regular season success serves no purpose to the Flyers at this time.

The 2023-24 season showed the organization’s commitment to teaching players how to win, both on and off the ice. Brind’Amour could certainly do that himself, but again, the Flyers would be making a change for the sake of making a change.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. As for the Hurricanes? The bigger they are, the harder they fall. It’ll be tough to get back up from another disappointing postseason run.