The Ended Flyers Thread

[xogfog]

The good news is that the draft, while it would be lovely to have one of the top three picks, is deep in the first half of the first round. The Flyers should still get a very good player. I'm particularly intrigued with RW Cole Caufield, only 5' 7" but a real natural goal scorer, would be great with play makers like Giroux and Patrick. Also like LW Arthur Kaliyev and D Victor Soderstrom, a RH D-man 18, already playing in the Swedish elite league.

[VoteForKalas]

The problem is the ownership of the Flyers have little clue or interest in hockey, the management is full of Flyer old hands like Clarke & Holmgren or business types like Dave Scott, the GM Fletcher has a very mixed record and the coach, Gordon, is not the right man for the job.

They are likely going to return to mortgaging the future for a win now approach like they did under Snider after a short flirtation with rebuilding the farm system, getting the cap under control and using the talent pipeline to fuel the NHL roster under Hextall.

I expect trades and FA signings are coming and will likely not help us win a Cup or even win consistently.

[Austinfan]

We'll see what happens.
Fletcher has said all the right things, like why trading Leddy was a mistake, he's a smart guy.
And he didn't panic at the TDL.
His post-season interview was thoughtful and honest.

The advantage of Fletcher is he's more open and willing to communicate with his bosses than Hextall, he still has the same scouts in place sans Pryor, and he seems committed to his young players. So he may be able to deflect some of the pressure to make stupid moves with a little diplomacy.

The emergence of Hart has also taken some of the pressure off to do "something, anything," while a poor season has lowered expectations to the point that a playoff run, and a competitive first round loss would be seen as progress. Which would not require drastic moves this offseason to achieve.

[zambonir]

I don't mind Fletcher. He might be the second best GM of the last four! Lombardi is still there too. As for Gordon, would just hiring any coach with a resume definitely be an improvement? Certainly if they do that it further accelerates the lack of interest in a long-term approach. Not that Gordon is a naif but if you hire Bylsma or whoever, someone who's won a championship or been to the final, you are putting your foot on the accelerator.

Corporate ownership of any team is rarely a good thing, even if passionate hands-on owners can also screw things up. Who would you even expect to take an interest, Brian Roberts? The Flyers are nothing more than a media and business asset for a large publicly held company now. Not sure why they still even want to own 'em (having sold the Sixers, and since they still control the TV for all three teams). Except that the overall operation is obviously still very profitable.

Which is kind of a problem. While this year's actions say otherwise and the team's irrelevance can definitely hurt the bottom line in some ways, the Flyers probably don't have to win for the Spectacor division to be in the black. Owning the Flyers is probably good for the rest of the business, as far as arena management and concessions. Gives them credibiity and connections. None of which gets you a well-run hockey team!

I know Quenneville went to Florida because of Tailon but I can't help but think he was also too smart to go work for these guys. Supposedly Flyers offered him a better deal (plus he could have taken the job mid-season if he'd wanted to).

[VoteForKalas]

The advantage of Fletcher is he's more open and willing to communicate with his bosses than Hextall, he still has the same scouts in place sans Pryor, and he seems committed to his young players. So he may be able to deflect some of the pressure to make stupid moves with a little diplomacy.

Disagree, Hextall was willing to stand up against the reactionary impulses of the business and management folks who know nothing about hockey and building a good team. They are only interested in maximizing ticket sales, selling merchandise and lining their pockets. Have you been to a Flyers game recently? It is a horribly packaged product - they even have their own Phillies Phanatic in Gritty to distract fans. .

Hextall was fired because he had a plan and would not compromise the future for a short term and empty "victory" of winning 5 more games or bringing up Carter Hart before he was ready.

Fletcher will go with the commands up above regardless - as far as I can see he has no special GM acumen and was hired mostly for the fact he will play ball and follow orders.

[zambonir]

While I mostly agree with you, both specifically and in general, has there ever been an owner or front office that you actually thought was good (in any sport)? Even the process the Eagles' went through was basically horrible, it just turned out that the owner's perceived (and briefly deposed) patsy actually knew what he was doing.

I love Gritty, but it's still true. Games are boring. Crowd has no life or heat. But I'm not sure they can wait another 2-3 years either. Unfortunately Hextall was not allowed to tank quite like the Sixers, nor was the team ever as bad as the Phillies. I don't think you can say this season truly went according to Hextall's plan either. If he were still here he would have had to fire the coach; question is what would he have done to the roster?

[VoteForKalas]

Yes, Lurie owning the Eagles has been quite good with Reid and now Roseman

[zambonir]

Lurie is a very good owner, no question, but they still had five dysfunctional years, at least. The journey from Dream Team to Chip Kelly to Super Bowl champs was not exactly a brilliantly executed long-term plan, either to win or to be patient. If anything his flaw was being too easily manipulated (by his coaches), rather than being too hands-on.

[VoteForKalas]

Lurie is a very good owner, no question, but they still had five dysfunctional years, at least. The journey from Dream Team to Chip Kelly to Super Bowl champs was not exactly a brilliantly executed long-term plan, either to win or to be patient. If anything his flaw was being too easily manipulated (by his coaches), rather than being too hands-on.

Agreed, but there has never been a doubt Lurie wants to win, understands he needs to lead and develop as good an organization as he can. Flyers had some of that with Snider, but he never allowed a rebuild and totally missed how the NHL changed with the salary cap. Since the Cup run in 2010, the Flyers have largely been lost except for the Hextall attempt at a new approach.

[Squire]

I don't think its an owner distinction as much as it is a front office distinction. The Eagles never got over the hump but they really did have a string of really smart forward thinking guys (Joe Banner to Andy Reid to Howie Roseman) running things in a salary capped league. Chip Kelly was a notable blip/mistake which they corrected within a year of giving him control. With all due respect to Paul Holmgren I don't think he is a top executive at all. Hextall had a better chance of being one. Fletcher looks like a run of the mill guy.

[zambonir]

I think it's always the owner though. The good ones hire the right GM, and/or let the GM do their job. The bad ones either hire bad GMs or only hire GMs who do their bidding. Or are so difficult to work for that good GMs don't want the job. With the Flyers it's pretty hard to separate anything out from Clarke, Holmgren and Snider really. I think Fletcher's fine and he's had as much if not more success than Hextall overall. Hopefully he actually will be allowed to do his job.

[VoteForKalas]

Disagree Fletcher has had even close to as much success as Hextall

Hextall inherited an absolute mess from Homer and totally:

-revamped the farm system
-fixed the cap situation
-allowed players to develop at their own pace

Hextall's issues were with the NHL roster and the Flyers' mgmt win now absolutism. That resulted from the Flyers' refusal to allow him to tank out and do a full rebuild. Hextall had to rebuild WHILE still winning and making the playoffs which is virtually impossible.

[zambonir]

Hextall did a good job with what he had to work with but that's irrelevant now. And Fletcher had and has tons more experience. They both won as assistant GMs (Fletcher in Pittsburgh and Hextall in LA). But the Wild made the playoffs six times while he was GM there, and even won some rounds. Ultimately they underachieved, but you can't blame that solely on a GM anymore than you can blame the Flyers for not winning a single series under Hextall. Hextall shouldn't have been fired, but let's not act like Fletcher is Bryan Colangelo or Ruben Amaro Jr.

[Austinfan]

The unknown with Fletcher is how much he learned from his Minnesota experience.

[DougLindsay]

Hextall was awful. Any praise he gets must be left over good will from his playing days.

[zambonir]

He wasn't, he did tons of great things. If he'd been allowed to go full rebuild in 2013-2014 he'd probably still have his job because the Flyers would also have better players. He never got to draft an Embiid or a Simmons by design; Patrick was luck. And hockey players (as both Patrick and Couturier show) take a lot longer to develop.

I'm sure Fletcher learned a lot in Minnesota, how would he not have? His trade deadline trades were all useless and I imagine that will make him pause before mortgaging a young player or draft pick for short-term gain this off-season too. So long as it's his call....

[LegoDoom]

Hextall did a great job. The biggest misses were Patrick (when most thought he was the lock 2nd best player in the draft, so it wasn't the worst miss... and he still has a shot to be a great player) and O'Brien.

Unless you think that he should have bolstered the NHL squad, which I don't believe he should... his job was to get rid of the bad contracts and bring in young talent.

He did a fantastic job.... even if it hasn't been realized yet.

[Austinfan]

Patrick isn't a miss, while his scoring hasn't emerged yet, he's already an above average defensive center at 20.
Rubtsov, Laberge and O'Brien are bad injury luck, but all have shown flashes, far too early to give up on them.
Hextall's worst draft picks were NAK at #48 and maybe Ginning at #50.

Hextall's real problem is he took over a team with limited assets, an depleted talent pipeline (Ghost, Laughton, Hagg, Morin, then scrubs like Cousins, Leier, Manning, VdV, etc.) and no cap room.

We won't know until the stories eventually come out, but I suspect Hextall would have blown it up in the summer of 2014 (trade Voracek and Simmonds) but wasn't allowed to do a rebuild and tank for a few years, the FO wanted to be "competitive."

Hakstol is the fans' whipping boy, but name one prospect who flopped under his watch. Now compare to other teams around the league. That was his most important job, teach kids how to play two way hockey. The next coach is going to inherit a deep, talented and very young team.

[LegoDoom]

Patrick could be a miss in the sense that Miro and Pettersson seem like top line/pairing players and so far Patrick is a 3rd line center with flashes of a 2nd line center.

[flyers19rw]

With me on Fletcher, its so far; so good.
-He did end the Hakstol experience. Perhaps it was done awkwardly, but it did get finished. The messy side of that process was due to the way that Hextall handled working with the rest of the higher ups in the FO. I was positively impressed by the fact that he didn't quickly nab one of the unemployed ex HCs that were floating around out there (Bylsma, Yeo, etc.) and decided to go the interim route with an in house guy instead.
-Fletcher then went on and flushed out the trash on the roster that Hextall allowed to hang around. The new GM deserves credit for doing what Hextall would not.
-We currently see him taking his time in the hiring of the next HC. Again he deserves some respect for not making knee jerk hire when the person that he supposedly coveted was spirited away by another organization. There is a heavy rumor that the new coach could be Alain Vigneault. While not being my favorite for the job, AV does have a good resume with quality HC experience. The Flyers could do worse than hiring him.
We will get to see more to assess the skill of Fletcher when we (1) see who he eventually hires. All indications are that it will be an experienced HC. (2)Then who he drafts; and finally (3) who he moves and acquires. As of yet I don't see any reason to get down on what he will do.