So everyone not living under a rock in Philly knows by now that one of their favorite sons, Ron Hextall, has come back to the Flyers roost under the title “Assistant General Manager/Director of Hockey Operations”.
The one person who should be most concerned by this move is current General Manager Paul Holmgren, and here are a few reasons why:
Perhaps the biggest reasons surround the Stanley Cup, but on two different fronts. The fact that Hextall won one as an Assistant GM, and the amount of players who won a Cup after Holmgren sent them packing or let them go. The list of players winning a Cup post Flyers tenure reads off as a who’s who of recent Flyers favorites in former Captain Mike Richards, high scoring C/W Jeff Carter, enforcer Dan Carcillo, long time scoring W Simon Gagne and of course the big offseason catch, returning goalie Ray Emery.
It seems as if some horribly karmic pattern has developed where instead of winning a Cup here in Philadelphia? Everyone Holmgren trades or doesn’t resign achieves the very standard of success Flyers fans expect somewhere else. Even goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, while not winning the Cup managed to display superhuman goaltending in a city known for it’s -wait for it- horrible goaltending, snatching a Vezina in the process.
Now to be fair, the hauls Homer received in return for Carter and Richards were solid, and feature four players who have become Flyers fans most talked about athletes not named crazy cosmonaut Ilya Bryzgalov, but I’m certain on any day of the week ending in the letter Y that Philly would have gladly kept the former players here for the Cup alone. Just. One. Cup.
On the flip side of the Cup coin resides the path Hextall has taken, being groomed as a future GM in the making by snake oil salesman and underrated Kings GM Dean Lombardi. Lombardi has never quite received enough praise for his role in helping the Sharks become a perennial contender through veteran acquisitions and draft development, and even after doing much the same with the Kings, still isn’t recognized enough for what he has achieved and should one day be recognized with a GM award win.
Ron has been Lombardi’s right hand man virtually since the start of the Kings developmental turn into a Stanley Cup contending powerhouse, and will likely use the knowledge he acquired during that tenure into crafting a similar blueprint for the Flyers.
The track records of these two men in the last couple of seasons have trended in opposite directions, with fans and media alike questioning Holmgren’s every move, while Hextall has been praised for his work in Los Angeles. The fans will have their eyes on what feels like Paul’s last gamble, the signing of three high profile Free Agents in each positional category, in hopes of producing a solid contender. If Emery, Streit and Lecavalier do not pay dividends and immediately(this season must be a deep playoff year), then without a doubt everyone will fully expect a regime change in the front office, complete with a possible coaching change as well (it worked for LA, right?).
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