Dave Isaac | The Courier-Post

VOORHEES — Who’d have thought it was possible when the chorus of fans were chanting for Dave Hakstol’s head on a silver platter in early December?

At the three-quarter mark of the season, some pundits are thinking about end of season awards and are putting Hakstol in the mix for the Jack Adams Award given to the league’s best coach.

It’s a race for second place, because Gerard Gallant, bench boss of the expansion Vegas Golden Knights, is the odds-on favorite, but does Hakstol belong in the running?

ESPN’s John Buccigross called him the coach of the year on Twitter and others have him in the conversation.

“He definitely made some tweaks and ever since I think we’ve kind of been rolling,” Scott Laughton said. “Credit to him for finding out what we needed to do and where our game needed to get better. I think the guys have done a great job of buying into that and playing the system the right way and making little tweaks along the way.”

{{props.notification}} {{props.tag}} {{props.expression}} {{props.linkSubscribe.text}} {{#modules.acquisition.inline}}{{/modules.acquisition.inline}} ... Our reporting. Your stories. Get unlimited digital access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now

Hakstol is not one for rash changes. Not even in the 0-5-5 streak was he making many changes.

He says it’s part of the slow play of coaching an 82-game season and not just trying a quick fix for one win that ends an ugly streak.

“Regardless of the makeup of the team age-wise or experience-wise,” he said, “I believe there is a process in finding the best roles, the correct roles and at the end of the day the most important thing is giving players the best opportunity to be successful and help our team because the team comes first.”

Wochit

Nolan Patrick wasn’t the second line center in October. He is now.

Shayne Gostisbehere wasn’t playing 24 minutes a night in November. He is now.

Travis Konecny didn’t have a role in overtime early in the season. He’s been magic in the extra session with Sean Couturier recently.

Apparently those roles were growing while Hakstol was hearing chants for his firing.

“I think what’s nice about him is that he never really panics,” Couturier said. “He’s always in good control of himself and the team and that kind of reflects in the way we play, I think. It would have been easy early in the year when things weren’t going well to just flip on guys and kind of panic. But no, he stuck in there and we were all together in this. Definitely there’s some credit that goes to him.”

History suggests the Flyers’ success will continue.

Hakstol’s teams are notorious for having strong second-half pushes going back to his days at North Dakota. It was true in his first season in Philadelphia, when the Flyers went 26-13-7 after Jan. 1, not so much last year when they were 19-19-6.

This season the Flyers are 18-5-2 since Jan. 1 with 19 games to go. His last three seasons at North Dakota in the new year were 16-6-1, 16-7-1 and 12-8-4.

“It’s coincidence,” Hakstol said, sporting a rare wry grin. He knew he had to elaborate.

“Every team is so different. And this is a different level than those teams were built in. That’s a long stretch of a correlation to try to draw. In saying that, you start a year and you’re trying to build towards a goal. There’s usually different levels of goals that you’re working toward. Our first and foremost goal is to become a playoff team and to be playing as well as we can and at great of health’s strength as we possibly can be at that time.”

Health has certainly tested the Flyers recently and they haven’t stopped because they’ve lost Wayne Simmonds, Brian Elliott and Michal Neuvirth.

That has helped boost Hakstol into the conversation among the coaching elite. He’ll contend with Boston’s Bruce Cassidy, New Jersey’s John Hynes, Winnipeg’s Paul Maurice and, of course, Gallant is expected to win.

How much of the Flyers’ success is coaching as opposed to the next-man-up mentality the players speak of?

“He’s been here what, three years? First year we were good in the second half,” Jake Voracek said. “Second year we were (crappy). This year we are great. These are positive signs and we are still taking it from that training camp, to be honest with you. Training camp was really hard. We skated really hard. Even when we have a couple days off we’re pushing pretty hard in practice.

“Obviously he’s doing something right. We are here as a team, so coaches, players, management, trainers, doctors, everybody deserves credit.”