Flyers coach Alain Vigneault believes hockey and other sports will help bring back ‘some sort of normalcy’

Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said Wednesday that he was optimistic the NHL season would resume, and that it would help bring back some normalcy to people’s lives.

“When this starts again … ,” he said at one point, referring to the 2019-20 season.

The season was paused March 12 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I believe sports is going to be part of the process to getting back to some sort of normalcy,” Vigneault said during a conference call with reporters. “I believe everybody is missing their sports right now. I don’t know when it’s going to be, but when it is [back], we are going to be ready.”

Vigneault went to his home in South Florida for a while, then traveled to Gatineau, Quebec, “when they called Canadians back to Canada. So I went from having a lot of people at my condo complex to very few. I was getting a lot of pressure from family at home and friends to come back to Canada.”

Vigneault has been talking to his staff “and going through all the scenarios” for when teams might return, “and I believe if we get a good two weeks [of practice], we’ll be fine.”

The NHL has said teams will be given a three-week training camp if the league returns this season.

“Everybody will be in the same position; we’ll be out for the same amount of time,” Vigneault said. “My staff has a lot of experience – this is obviously something a little different – and I’m very confident we can get something together that is going to be very efficient for the players, very efficient to get our team ready. Hopefully, that’s what happens.”

During the seven weeks off, Vigneault has talked to a handful of his players and has left it up to Chris “Ozzie” Osmond and Dan Warnke, the team’s strength and conditioning coaches, to coordinate workouts with the players.

“When this starts again, we want to be as ready as we can,” Vigneault said.

The Flyers had won nine of their last 10 games before the season was paused, climbing into second place in the Metropolitan Division, one point behind Washington.

Regaining the momentum they had built “is going to be our challenge,” Vigneault said. “We were playing our best hockey of the season at that time. I don’t think we can go into this showing any signs of emotional frustration. The world has been put on pause and with what people are going through right now, when we come back, we can help them by doing the best job we can as far as playing on the ice. We’ll be exactly like everyone else. We’ll have the exact amount of time" to get ready.

The Flyers have a 41-21-7 record, including a league-best 25-6-4 mark at home.

“Our team was in a good place and it’s going to be all our jobs – from coaches to management to players – to get back to that good spot we were in,” Vigneault said. “Teams have to improve during the season, and I believe that’s what we were doing in all aspects of our game. We were getting better individually and as a team.”

During the break, Vigneault, 58, has been involved in the Flyers’ Phone-Linemates program, one in which weekly phone calls are made to people living at the Abramson Senior Care Center in North Wales, Montgomery County.

“It’s just a small little thing we can do,” he said. “My parents are 84 and 86 and they’re both in their senior residence. They’ve both been isolated since Day 1 [of the coronavirus outbreak]. My mom has had a little more challenging time, mentally, in the past few months, but my dad is still as sharp as he can be.

"There’s no doubt that with him going through this by himself, he’s very lonely. So when the Flyers brought this program to my attention, there were a couple in my group that talked about it. It’s something we felt that if we can help in any minuscule way, we wanted to.”

Vigneault is living with his girlfriend, Monica Cotton, who is an emergency nurse in Ottawa.

“She’s been on the forefront” of the coronavirus, he said. “She’s been very impressed with how her bosses have handled this; she feels very secure. … They’ve set up a way of doing things so she can do her job, feel safe, and help the public.”

He said his sister, Nicole Vigneault, works for Quebec Health and has also been a front-line worker in the crisis.

Vigneault said that between discussions with his girlfriend and sister and making sure his parents, daughters, and friends are all right, “you talk to people and keep yourself busy. ”