Reports on Friday afternoon are that John Stevens is out as coach of the Philadelphia Flyers. Stevens was made the Head Coach on Oct. 22, 2006.

The Flyers are currently in fourth place in the Atlantic Division with a 13-11-1 record (27 points), and trail first place Pittsburgh by 13 points. Philadelphia has lost seven of their last 10 games.

Philadelphia currently ranks ninth in the NHL, allowing 3.00 goals per game, while allowing 2.68, good for 10th in the league. They also rank fourth in the NHL in offensive power play at 22.8 percent, but are 14th in penalty killing at only 80.9 percent.

They spent a lot of money to upgrade the roster this summer, most notably adding Chris Pronger to a roster that finished 44-27-11 (99 points) last season. They were eliminated from the Eastern Conference playoffs in the first round by Pittsburgh in six games.

Rumors are that Peter Laviolette could replace Stevens on the Flyers’ bench. Carolina has already granted Philadelphia permission to speak with Laviolette, who will reportedly make his debut on the Flyers’ bench on Saturday.

In two separate pieces of “breaking” news, two Eastern Conference leaders will be without star players for the next four to six weeks.

The Boston Bruins announced that center Marc Savard, who has led Boston in scoring each of the last three seasons, has been lost to a broken foot. Savard already had tallied seven points on the young season, again leading Boston’s offense.

Meanwhile, the defending Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins lost blue line All Star Sergei Gonchar to a broken wrist Tuesday night. The 35-year old already had eight points on the young season for Pittsburgh.

Savard and Gonchar join a list of All Stars that will be missing a significant amount of time early this season. Vancouver is without Daniel Sedin and Sami Salo, Detroit is without Johan Franzen, Chicago hasn’t seen anything yet from Marian Hossa, Columbus is without Jan Hejda, and Edmonton is without Sheldon Souray.