Paul Holmgren Is Hired As Scout

The Flyers have hired Paul Holmgren to scout other NHL teams, general manager Bob Clarke said yesterday.

Clarke also indicated that Bill Barber, who stepped down as director of pro scouting to replace Jay Leach as head coach of the minor-league Hershey Bears, had the inside track to become coach of the Flyers' expansion American Hockey League team next season.

Holmgren, fired as head coach of the Hartford Whalers on Nov. 6, was head coach of the Flyers from 1988 to '91, and served as an assistant to Mike Keenan before taking over. Holmgren also worked as general manager of the Whalers before being replaced by Jim Rutherford in June 1994.

``Paul will fill in for Bill Barber and handle some of the duties that Bill filled for us,'' Clarke said. Clarke said that Holmgren was not given Barber's former title of director of pro scouting.

Barber stepped away from his job as a pro scout to become head coach of the Bears, the Flyers' AHL affiliate, on Dec. 31, and Clarke indicated that Barber could nail down the job as the Flyers' AHL coach next season if certain things fell into place.

It has also been rumored that Holmgren is a candidate to coach the expansion AHL team.

``Billy and I haven't talked very much about the future, but this is a good chance to see if he likes coaching,'' Clarke said. ``If he's good at it and he likes it, that doesn't leave much of a decision for me next season.''

The Bears, who are 17-19-5 overall, are 3-4-1 under Barber.

NOTES. Flyers center Eric Lindros may not have put a shot on net yesterday, but he did have a deflected slapshot carom all the way to the last row of seats in the third level of the Spectrum. . . . Darren Rumble, called up Friday from Hershey, played yesterday in place of the injured Petr Svoboda. . . . Flyers forward Rod Brind'Amour played in his 200th consecutive game. That's the fifth-longest streak in the NHL.