VOORHEES — The Flyers’ first practice following a nightmare trip to Western Canada was set for some time after noon Monday.

Come 12:30, the ice was still empty.

The day after a Courier-Post report that the Flyers had decided to fire Dave Hakstol — a report that the club denied — players were being told at noon that their coach indeed had been relieved of his duties. Another change amid an underperforming season where the Flyers are only 12-15-4, eight points out of a playoff spot, and have lost four straight games.

By 12:45, players were on the ice with assistant coach Kris Knoblauch leading drills.

“It’s been I think the weirdest season so far in my career since I entered the league,” Jake Voracek said. “In talking about it with the guys, I think it’s rock bottom. We have to figure it out in the locker room and play better.

“Hak is a great guy. We made the playoffs two out of three years since he’s been here. Did we have ups and downs? Yes. He was a new coach, first time in the NHL. You learn something over the span of those years. It’s always tough when somebody gets let go.”

The Courier-Post also reported that the Flyers had interviewed Joel Quenneville and would hire him as Hakstol’s replacement, but sources said Monday that talks have broken down between the three-time Stanley Cup coach and someone within the Flyers organization. At least for now.

Scott Gordon is coming up from AHL Lehigh Valley to be the interim coach, perhaps for the rest of the season. He wasn’t given enough notice to make Monday’s practice.

There may be more competition for Quenneville in the offseason, but the Flyers have deep pockets.

General manager Chuck Fletcher said that he personally hadn’t spoken to Quenneville in two years aside from a well-wishing text message when the coach was fired from Chicago last month, and that he hadn’t asked the Blackhawks’ permission to negotiate with him.

“If I don’t know what I’m looking for, I can’t find it,” Fletcher said. “At this point, everyone’s a candidate going forward. This will be a process. I’ve expressed that to Scott.”

For now, this is Gordon’s team. Fletcher said he will be among those candidates.

Can a new voice bring the Flyers back to relevancy?

“Possibly, but as men we’ve got to take our parts in this, too,” Wayne Simmonds said. “Obviously as players we’re the ones going out on the ice and performing every night. To be quite frank, it hasn’t been good enough this year. As a result of that, a man loses his job and you feel bad. We’ve got to take responsibility in that, too.”

Hakstol, 50, had a 134-101-42 record across three-plus seasons in Philadelphia. He had coached the third-most games in Flyers franchise history.

Ron Hextall, who was fired as general manager three weeks ago, went out on a big limb in 2015 to bring Hakstol to the NHL from the NCAA after he had coached 11 seasons at North Dakota. His best season was the last one, when the Flyers went 42-26-14 and their 98 points earned them third place in the Metropolitan Division.

“When I took this job, the intention was certainly to take some time and get to know the team and get to know Dave, and going on the road last week and having all that time to spend with him and watch the team, clearly I came away tremendously impressed with Dave as a human being,” Fletcher said. “To my eyes there was a disconnect between what he was preaching and how the players were playing.

“I’ve been obviously thinking about this for a few weeks, what’s the right move. Part of what I wanted to do for Dave, too, in fairness, if I got to a point where I thought it was gonna go in a different direction, I wanted to be fair to him. If I felt strongly I needed to make a change, it’s not fair to the organization nor is it fair to Dave to continue down the same path. At the end of the road trip I had come to that conclusion.”

Dave Isaac; @davegisaac; 856-486-2479; disaac@gannett.com