VOORHEES, N.J. -- The first major change to the Flyers for next season concerns the coaching staff, where power play specialist Joey Mullen didn't have his contract renewed.
General manager Ron Hextall said he informed Mullen the club was making a change on Monday. Mullen had been on the Flyers coaching staff since 2007.
"He's a terrific human being, one of my favorite guys in the whole world, but my gut feeling was to make a change there," Hextall said. "It terms of Mully, it was just a gut call."
The power play, which rose to No. 1 (25 percent efficiency) during the Flyers' 10-game winning streak on Dec. 10, went through a second-half collapse (5-for-50 in March alone), and finished 14th.
During his long tenure in Philadelphia, the Flyers' power play finished among the NHL's top 10 seven times. Five times, it was in the top five, finishing No. 1 overall in 2011-12.
As a player, Mullen was the first American to ever score 500 goals and amass 1,000 points in his NHL career.
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In some respects, the power play had become stale and too predictable for teams to defend, even with new personnel.
That said, Brayden Schenn finished tied for No. 1 on the team in power play goals with 17, while Wayne Simmonds had 16.
Claude Giroux, another first unit PP member, finished fourth in the league with 31 power play points and third with 26 power play assists. Giroux lacked in power play goals with just five, well under his capability.
Ian Laperriere, whose penalty kill units finished among the bottom 10 for the third consecutive season, will be retained, Hextall said.
Hextall did not say who would run the power play but indicated the club would hire from the outside.
"I'm not laying anything on Joe Mullen. Don't think that," Hextall said. "It was a gut call on my part. We needed to make a change. It's not because necessarily it's the power play but one of those things where you need a change …
"Monday was one of the worst days in my life, because of it. Mully is a great guy, I have an awful lot of respect for him. He's had a great run."
Coach Dave Hakstol said there was "no easy answer" for why the power play nosed-dived.
"Some nights, we weren't able to execute," he said. "Weren't as sharp as we could be. There were a lot of nights where we generated very good opportunities and just weren't able to finish on those opportunities.
"So when I look at the process of our power play as we went down the stretch, I saw a lot of nights where the opportunities were there, the effort was there and in terms of togetherness, especially, the No. 1 unit, it was very good. We didn't come up with the results."
Most of the offense on the power play came from the Giroux unit, which changed up in the second half when Jakub Voracek moved to the second unit.
Hextall said part of the reason for Giroux's struggles this season was the power play, despite stats that say otherwise.
"I think part of it is our power play has gone backwards," he said of Giroux's offensive problems overall this season. "That part of it has hurt his numbers so to speak. I don't think G had a great year.
"He's not on the decline. I know this, I'll be shocked next year if you guys don't ask me in January how has G turned this around. He's a very driven athlete, very driven."
Hakstol said the power play came down to finishing off chances.
"Some of those plays, it's a fraction of an inch … whether we finish on it," Hakstol said. "Coming down the stretch and at different times of the year, we didn't finish on those."
Asked about the penalty kill, Hextall said it can get better.
"If you really break it down, we didn't give up that many chances," Hextall said. "Our penalty kill, other than the amount of goals that went in our net, was okay. Can it get better? Yes. Everything has to get better."
