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Quick Hits: WJSS, Hextall, Knoblauch and More |
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Quick Hits: July 31, 2019
1) WJSS Update: Playing in their first game at the 2019 World Junior Summer Showcase in Plymouth, Mich., Team Canada dealt Team USA a 4-1 setback on Tuesday afternoon. Canada led 2-0 after two periods and, after Team USA briefly drew back within a goal, pulled away with a quick strike to restore a two-goal margin and then an extra insurance tally midway through the final stanza.
Kirby Dach scored twice for Canada, while Joe Veleno and Nolan Foote each had a goal and an assist for Canada. Justin Barron chipped in two assists. On the USA side, Cole Caufield sniped a third period power play goal after jockeying the puck with Matthew Boldy. Flyers 2019 first-round pick Cam York received a secondary assist on the Caufield tally.
Flyers 2018 first-round pick Joel Farabee played a strong game for the American side, but did not record a point. One of his offensive highlights was setting up Caufield with a nice saucer pass but Caufield's bid for a second goal (which would have cut the gap down to 3-2) was denied on a nice save by Hunter Jones.
Flyers 2019 second-round pick Bobby Brink, who is still looking for his first goal in the tourney (Farabee has two and York has one), had the Americans' first high-grade scoring opportunity of the game but goalie Olivier Rodrigue, who played the first two periods in net for Team Canada, made a pad save to deny his stuff-in attempt attempt at the left post as Brink moved across.
On Wednesday, Team USA will play Sweden (including Flyers prospect Adam Ginning) at 4 p.m. EDT. The game will be televised on NHL Network. So will a 1 p.m. EDT clash between Canada and Finland.
2) According to media reports on Tuesday, former Flyers general manager Ron Hextall is the potential frontrunner for the GM vacancy that opened in Minnesota on Tuesday with the firing of Paul Fenton. For the time being, assistant Wild GM Tom Kurvers will serve as acting general manager.
The timing of Fenton's dismissal by owner Craig Leipold was odd, It came relatively late in the off-season; more than a month after the NHL Draft and nearly a full month after the start of free agency season. At this time of year, it is tough to get permission to talk to other teams' assistant GMs. Other teams have already hired their new GMs (Steve Yzerman going to Detroit, Ken Holland moving to Edmonton, Julien Brisebois in Tampa, Kelly McCrimmon in Vegas with George McPhee becoming team president, Ron Francis hired as the GM of the Seattle expansion franchise).
In explaining the firing of Fenton, who was assistant GM of the Predators when Leipold was in Nashville, the Wild owner told the Athletic, "I knew him in a different way. He was an assistant general manager really doing scouting. That was his role. And he was tremendous at that [as a GM]. It was the other portion of being a general manager [where he fell short]; the organizational, the strategic, the management of people, the hiring and motivating of the departments. When I talk about not being a fit, that's what I'm referring to."
Some of the same things that Leipold cited were issues with Fenton were said of Ron here in Philadelphia; primarily on the people management, and departmental morale fronts as much as the fact that the current team was not winning. However, I think Hextall can and will evolve as a manager.
In Philly, Hexy's strengths as a GM were clear. He was adept at collecting Draft assets. He drafted well, in conjunction with former assistant general manager Chris Pryor. He wisely put resources into development infrastructure. He had a clear vision of what he wanted to build for the long term. Additionally, he did a good job in long-term salary cap planning.
I don't want to delve too much again here into Hextall's dismissal in Philadelphia, and playing the blame game. What I will say is that he is a bright and reflective guy who will learn from his experiences in his first NHL GM job.
In his heart of hearts, Hextall may still not feel like he micromanaged or was unreasonably too rigid in certain policies that proved unpopular. However, I think he's had sufficient time to realize that failure to recognize that others' perceptions of such within an organization can snowball in unintended ways. In any workplace, including the business of hockey, there's a risk of unintentionally feeding into a whisper-down-the-lane effect that is very real and can be quite damaging. That's especially true when a manager becomes too isolated within an organization. Ron kept perhaps too small of a circle of trust within the hockey ops realm itself, and he lacked sufficient backing elsewhere. With the NHL team not winning, the combination proved fatal to Hexy's tenure.
At its root, there was a breakdown of communication during the unraveling of the Hextall era, and with that came a breakdown of trust. Remember, there are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth that's somewhere in between.
Personally, I believe Hextall did enough things well here on the hockey side that he deserves another shot at an NHL general manager job. The next time around, he must do better at managing upwards, thinking brand-wide and having the foresight to understand the delicate balance between maintaining a clear mission statement without potentially isolating oneself.
In order to land -- and then maintain -- an NHL general manager role elsewhere, Hexy will have to draw not only on his hockey ops knowledge but also get better on the corporate side of management. The bottom line: Being a more powerful version of a hockey ops focused assistant GM isn't enough for a head GM to last in today's NHL unless a) his team is a perennial Cup contender and/or b) if he simultaneously wields ultimate brand-wide power in the organization ala Lou Lamoriello in New Jersey and with the Islanders.
On the hockey team-building side, I don't see Ron Hextall's philosophies drastically changing. At heart, he will still be first-and-foremost a manager focused on a patient draft-and-develop approach and will still be reluctant to make win-now moves -- trading assets or young players for immediate help -- until he feels his team is ready to contend.
Then again, Hextall didn't go "full rebuild" with the Flyers. He kept enough of the Paul Holmgren-built nucleus in place for the team to be at least a playoff bubble team (making it twice, failing to reach the postseason the other years). The first significant addition to it was the UFA contract that he signed James van Riemsdyk to last summer.
The Seattle expansion oversight would have been a perfect fit for Hextall, but Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Francis got the nod. However, I also think Hextall could fit well in Minnesota with the aforementioned adjustments to avoid the pitfalls that GMs need to avoid apart from too-gradual progress in the standings. If Hextall goes to Minnesota, as a facet of landing the job, he may be expected to accelerate things at a considerably faster pace than he sought here.
If he gets the Wild job, Hextall may be more inclined to make some signings by next summer where he gives out a little more term than he'd ideally prefer and/or adds some older support pieces via trade even if he's the one trading the younger player in an exchange of two NHL roster players. Either that, or he'd have to successfully sell the notion of a total rebuild to Craig Leipold beforehand; something that I don't think is likely.
4) Yes, there would be some irony to Ron Hextall (possibly bringing Minnesota native Pryor along with him as assistant GM, as "Sarge" was a key part of Hexy's small inner circle here in Philadelphia) going to Minnesota after Chuck Fletcher (along with assistant GM Brent Flahr) came to the Flyers to replace Hextall and Pryor. That's how it goes in hockey sometimes.
There are no guarantees that the Flyers under Chuck Fletcher will click after the Kevin Hayes contract and the trades for Matt Niskanen and Justin Braun. But there was a thought process behind it that was basically a middle ground between Paul Holmgren's very aggressive approach to try to win immediately at the NHL level and Hextall's approach that was somewhat reminiscent of the Russ Farwell era of the early 1990s.
Under Fletcher this summer, immediate help was (potentially) brought in, yet the Flyers traded no prospects to obtain it. The sacrifice came in terms of allocating much of their immediate cap space. At the Draft, the GM maneuvered around so that the team traded back into the second round (and then traded up in that round) to draft Bobby Brink after taking Cam York with the 14th overall pick. Time will tell both on the vets and the most recent draftees but, on paper at least, the 2019-20 Flyers look better than the one last summer than Hexy felt was at least ready to hit the 100-point mark in the regular season and perhaps win a playoff round.
We'll see how well it works. There are a lot of things that have to come together -- new coaching staff, new system, a 21-year-old goalie paired with an aging veteran who has had major injury issues the past two seasons, two new vet D who need to bounce back a bit from down seasons in 2018-19, a major need to significantly cut down on GAA, and to improve full-season numbers on both ends of special teams. Young players need to continue to develop and the remaining nucleus forwards who are now in their early 30s must have strong seasons.
Could most of those things come together in a single season? Sure. But the jury is out, and there's a lot of parity in the league. Most teams have some holes, and that still includes the Flyers. Even the NHL's most seemingly complete team -- Tampa Bay -- ingloriously fell in a first-round sweep this past season because they handled their first real adversity very poorly when it hit them in the playoffs. My viewpoint is to wait and see how the pieces fit together. I don't think this team is a slam-dunk for the playoffs. However, I also wouldn't be surprised if the Flyers avoid some of the excessive streakiness of recent years, make the playoffs and then knock off a team or two come next spring.
5) Earlier this week, the New York Rangers hired former Flyers assistant coach Kris Knoblauch as the new head coach of their AHL affiliate, the Hartford Wolf Pack. This will be the first pro-level head coaching opportunity for the 40-year-old Knoblauch, who previously steered the WHL's Kootenay Ice and the OHL's Erie Otters to championships at the major junior level. He was considered a wunderkind candidate for an eventual NHL head coaching job.
In 2017, after Ron Hextall decided not to renew the contract of veteran power play coach Joey Mullen, the Flyers hired Knoblauch to coach the power play. He also diagrammed set plays at the bench. The Flyers power play finished in the middle of the pack in 2017-18 (20.7 percent, ranked 15th overall). The team scuffled for much of 2018-19 despite a series of strategic and personnel tweaks and ended up ranked in a tie for 22nd at 17.1 percent. It is also notable that the Flyers gave up a combined 21 shorthanded goals (10 in 2017-18, 11 in 2018-19), which the second most of any team in the league over that span.
With the ascension of a new coaching staff co-assembled by Fletcher and new head coach Alain Vigneault, Knoblauch was a casualty this summer. He has been replaced by former NHL head coach Michel Therrien. Knoblauch landed on his feet quickly, and has been able to secure his first pro-level head coaching gig with the opportunity in Hartford.
Earlier this summer, former Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol was hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs as one of Mike Babcock's assistant coaches. Rick Wilson, who came out of retirement to coach the Flyers' defensemen at the invite of Hakstol, has gone back into retirement after 30-plus-years spent mostly as an NHL assistant coach. Mike Yeo is now handling defenseman coaching in addition to PK coaching duties. Ian Laperriere is still with the Flyers' coaching staff but will now be handling pre-scouts and eye-in-the-sky duties rather than the penalty kill.
Former assistant coach Gord Murphy, who handed defense coaching duties throughout the Hextall tenure as GM before being fired in favor of Wilson a day or two after Hextall was dismissed, is not currently with an NHL team. During the Stanley Cup playoffs, Murphy did some work for NHL.com on its "Coaches Room" feature.
6) Congratulations to the Philadelphia Flyers Warrior Hockey team for winning its first-ever game; a come-from-behind exhibition game win on Sunday against the USA Warriors. Flyers Alumni Brad Marsh and Bob Kelly were on hand with the Flyers-sponsored team of wounded and disabled military vets. Afterwards, the Flyers Warrior team hosted a family day at the Skate Zone in Pennsauken, NJ.
7) Belated happy birthday wishes to Flyers Alumni members Bruce Hoffort (1966) and Danny Markov (1976). Both were born on July 30.
8) Today in Flyers History: On July 31, 2001, the Flyers traded defenseman Andy Delmore to the Nashville Predators for 2002 third-round pick (later traded to the Phoenix Coyotes).
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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