AV: Getting Back Where We Were

Philadelphia Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault, along with girlfriend Monica, has been in Gatineau, Quebec in recent weeks during the NHL's schedule pause for the Covid-19 pandemic. Initially, he stayed at his off-season condominum in Florida -- at the time of the stoppage, the Flyers were in Tampa Bay for a game against to Tampa Bay. After Canadian citizens were advised to return to their home country, he decided to return to Gatineau.

"I was getting pressure from family at home and friends to come back to Canada," he said during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday morning.

During the league pause, Vigneault has kept in touch on a weekly basis with general manager Chuck Fletcher and stays in regular contact with the team's assistant coaching staff. He's also made contact with five players, including frequent text messages with left winger Oskar Lindblom, who will shortly undergo his final round of treatments for Ewing Sarcoma.

No one in the NHL is sure yet if the 2019-20 season will be able to be completed -- although optimism appears to be growing, in conjunction with other parts of society gradually starting to reopen for business. No one is certain, presuming a restart comes to fruition, exactly what the timetable would be and how the remainder of the regular season and the Stanley Cup playoffs would be arranged.

Assuming that circumstances work out favorably, Vigneault believes that a two-week training camp would be sufficient time to get his team ready to play again.

"I have been talking with my staff and we've been going through all the possible scenarios. I believe that if we get a good two weeks, we'll be fine. Everybody (in the league: will be in the same position. We'll be out for the same amount of time. We'll be like everybody else. My staff has a lot of experience. This is obviously something different, but we have a lot of experience. I am very confident that we can get something together that's going to be very efficient for the players, very efficient to get our team ready. Hopefully that's what happens," he said.

Prior to the league pause -- especially over the team's final 26 games that were played before the stoppage -- the Flyers were one of the hottest teams in the NHL. Vigneault stressed that the task in from the team will be to get back to a comparable level of play in as short a period of time as possible.

"That's going to be our challenge, obviously. There's no doubt that we were playing our best hockey of the season at the time. I don't think we can go into this showing any signs of emotional frustration," he said.

"It will be all our jobs, from coaches to management to players, to get back to that good spot that we were in."

In many ways, the length of the schedule pause has put every team back on equal footing by wrecking any momentum that they'd built over the course of the season. However, the teams that have the shortest lag times to getting ready to compete -- and then show continual improvement thereafter -- would be the ones that thrive over the duration of a restarted campaign. In that sense, according to Vigneault, the process itself is similar even though the race would be a sprint rather than a marathon.

"Teams have to continue to improve during the season. You have to get better. I believe that's what we were doing in all aspects of our game, our 5-on-5 play, our special teams play, our defensive play and offensive play. We were getting better individually and getting better as a group. That enables you to get a chance, to get into the playoffs and have a chance to compete for the Stanley Cup," Vigneault said.

"That was our goal coming into the season. That goal hasn't changed. Obviously there's different components and a different dynamic at this time. I feel real confident that once we found out if we can get back at it, I'm optimistic that we will. Like I said, I think sports is going to be one of the venues that's going to help people get through this. Once we get back at it, I'm very confident with the focus of our group that we'll be at the same page as everybody else and it's going to be our job to work hard, work smart and do the right thing and get back to where we were."