PHILADELPHIA, Pa – The Philadelphia Flyers began their quest back in October hoping to once again be in the hunt for Lord Stanley’s Cup. Needless to say, things have not been going well lately for the orange and black. After 24 games, the Flyers have 22 points in the Metropolitan Division. In the Wild Card standings, the Flyers are five points away of the last playoff spot. Looking at the big picture the Flyers, are tied for the 4th worst point total in the league and are only five points ahead of the Los Angeles Kings for the “top” spot in the Jack Hughes sweepstakes.
Goalie Mike McKenna (#33) of the Ottawa Senators ,Right Wing Dale Weise (#22) and Right Wing Jakub Voracek (#93) of the Philadelphia Flyers, Defenseman Ben Harpur (#67) of the Ottawa Senators
The optimist would say that the season is still very young and things can turn around quickly in an 82 game season. The biggest problem facing the Flyers unfortunately are the Flyers themselves. With the exception of being the NHL’s top face-off team and having seven players on pace for at least 20 plus goal seasons, there are very few positive things to say about the state of the team, so much so that the whispers become reality when General Manager Ron Hextall was fired Monday and the current Head Coach Dave Hakstol is a dead coach walking since he was Hextall’s hand pick man.
To list all of the negatives the Flyers have would truly take several pages and several articles to cover them all. That said, we gotta start somewhere. Truth be told, most of the problems began before Hextall took over from former GM Paul Holmgren. Prior to Holmgren’s reign as GM, former Flyer great Bob Clarke held the position. That said, until the passing, the late owner Ed Snider was truly running the team. The previous GM’s knew who was in charge and played to the owners drum.
Today the Flyers are “supposedly” run by Chairman and CEO Dave Scott. If you’re asking yourself “who the heck is he?”, that is a perfectly understandable question, considering his extremely low profile. But for the sake of the team and the direction the Flyers, it’s time for Mr. Scott to start “earning his paycheck”. Holmgren did nothing to earn his current position as second in command under Scott as team President. Holmgren was a terrible GM and left the Flyers in a horrible salary cap position and made several bad trades and was in charge of the teams’ draft which left very few promising blue chip prospects at every position.
Clarke is also still behind the Flyers brain trust as Senior Vice President. Truth be told had it not been for Snider, Clarke would no longer have a voice in the Flyers organization. As much as Clarke has earned the respect of the Flyers fans and former players, like Holmgren it is time to move on. The Flyers have no won the Cup since 1975 when Clarke was the team’s captain. It’s time for new blood and a new set of ideas.
That brings us to Hextall, who won the respect of Snider having been a part of the Flyers past but he won the GM job because he was a part of the Kings championships this decade, along with the Kings previous GM Dean Lombardi who was the Senior Advisor to Hextall. A huge part of Hextall winning the GM job was the fact that the Flyers were doing things directly in opposition to what the Kings, and most teams in the salary cap era have done: Build a championship through the NHL Draft. Only the Anaheim Ducks can say that they had less than half their roster made up of players the team drafted.
Before Hextall took over the Flyers were in salary cap hell. Today the Flyers have a much better cap situation, but still have some bad contracts they need to get rid such as two players (Andrew MacDonald and Jori Lehtera) making almost $10 million and both are sitting in the press box. To make matters worse, MacDonald still has another year on his contract after this year. Dale Weise is a slow, plodding player who also has another year left to go on his contract as well and is chewing up a roster spot the team could us on someone else in their prospect pool. I can go on and on about the mistakes upper management has made, which I have done in previous articles about the Flyers drafts in years prior to Hextall’s arrival.
Left Wing Oskar Lindblom (#23) of the Philadelphia Flyers checked by Right Wing Ryan Callahan (#24) of the Tampa Bay Lightning
Hextall did a very good job with his involvement in building up the Flyers farm system, along with Assistant GM Chris Pryor. The Flyers farm system was terrible to say the least. It is far from perfect but very few people in NHL circles can find fault with what is going on with the Flyers. They still need right wingers who can score and a goaltender who will take the Flyers into the future in net.
Hextall, like is predecessors before him, had one major Achilles heel. Hextall’s biggest issue was, while he preached patience for his prospects to graduate to the big club, his current team was suffering big time. That leads us to Hakstol, who has never had a losing season in his career, pro or college, but he has been able to truly develop some of his players. He was more than willing to sit a prospect who made mistakes but the double standard with his veterans who did the same mistakes as a rookie is maddening to say the least.
Left Wing Marcus Johansson (#90) of the New Jersey Devils and Defenseman Andrew MacDonald (#47) of the Philadelphia Flyers
Hextall might not have been the Flyers biggest problem, but he also did nothing to fix the Flyer long standing goaltending issue and fire any of the assistant coaches that are not helping Hakstol make the team better.
The bottom line: The Flyers need to make the following changes It’s time to remove Holmgren and Clarke as part of the equation. Hire Joel Quennville as head coach, Steve Yzerman as team President, and hire a GM with no former ties to the Flyers. That said I would give very special consideration for Chris Pryor to the GM position despite being the teams Assistant GM and Director of Player Personnel.
Once a new GM is in place, it’s time to start the purge. Move the dead weight of the current roster, promote some of the kids in their system, and start over. If the season ended today the Flyers would have the fourth overall pick in the draft. Before that happens, let next season begin, the sooner the better.
Brian Jennings covers the Philadelphia Flyers for prohockeynews.com and can be found on twitter at @Flyersfan22.
All images by Lewis.Bleiman@prohockeynews.com
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