if Chucks plan was a full rebuild without actually saying that then he may be a good GM, it sure seems like that is his goal. If he pulls it off and we get a top 3 pick i tip my hat to chuck. Could have done it with signing ND to 1 or 2 years instead of 4 though
- bradster

Its not his plan and theyll achieve it due to his incompetence, not his intention

I don’t think it is there path as both stepped away when they knew their path didn’t work. That is what’s odd to me.

Chuck is just horrible. Has no backbone. No vision. No nothing. He is plain stupid no argument here.
- furio16

How is it different from their path? When they fired Hextall and Scott is saying they want to be relevant. Want to be a cap team. Thinks they can get right back in it. That's not Clarke and Holmgren's path? Of course it is.

Sielski article in the Inky today (formatting my own): Since it is paywalled, taking the liberty of posting it here.

Blame Chuck Fletcher all you want, but the Flyers’ problems predate his arrival

The first sign of where the franchise was headed, and how much it would struggle in a salary-capped NHL, came in the fall of 2006. It has been downhill pretty much ever since.


by Mike Sielski | Columnist
Updated Jul 16, 2022

One of the more amusing aspects of the Flyers’ descent from excellence to mediocrity to sub-mediocrity over the last 18 years has been the public anger directed toward Chuck Fletcher, who became the club’s general manager in 2018.

It’s enough to make you wonder if there’s a contagious case of long-term memory loss going around. I’m not suggesting that Fletcher should have been earning any votes for NHL Executive of the Year during his tenure. But I am suggesting that, when it comes to assigning blame for the Flyers’ fall and understanding how it happened, Fletcher is an immediate and easy target. Consider two factors that can be and are often overlooked:

The most difficult of tasks

One: Fletcher works for people. He works for Dave Scott and the rest of Comcast Spectacor. And when those people hired him, they gave him a mandate to complete the most difficult of tasks in a sports league with a salary cap: to turn things around quickly.

Yes, the Flyers should have picked a strategy and stuck to it. Yes, they should have either leveled with their fans that a long and painful rebuild was ahead (the sounder, more realistic strategy) or sacrificed whatever prospects and draft picks were necessary to try to win a Stanley Cup right away. Yes, their approach instead has been muddled and inconsistent. But if you want to target those who ultimately are responsible for such an approach, you should aim higher than Fletcher.
Bob Clarke, who was GM of the Flyers from 1984-90 and then again from 1994-2006, deserves part of the blame for the situation the Flyers currently find themselves in.
Bob Clarke, who was GM of the Flyers from 1984-90 and then again from 1994-2006, deserves part of the blame for the situation the Flyers currently find themselves in.

Two: The notion that the Flyers’ decline is a recent development — that everything was going fine until Ed Snider died and Ron Hextall and Fletcher came along and the franchise lost its identity — is inaccurate. It’s worse than inaccurate, actually. It’s laughable. The first sign that the Flyers were headed for trouble, and that they’d struggle to pull themselves out of it, came in 2006, 10 years before Snider’s death, eight years before Hextall became GM, and 12 years before Fletcher arrived.

Let’s do some stage-setting first. In 2004, the Flyers lost in seven games, to John Tortorella and the Tampa Bay Lightning, in the Eastern Conference finals. That club was the consummate manifestation of the Flyers’ pre-salary cap methods. It was veteran-laden, loaded with experienced players whom the organization had recently acquired in the hope of making a playoff push. The Flyers could afford to do that then, when all they needed to spend money or make a major trade was Snider’s approval.

Then the NHL lockout of 2004-05 happened. The implementation of a salary cap loomed. To their credit, Bob Clarke — the Flyers’ GM at the time — and his assistant, Barry Hanrahan, reached out to then-Eagles president Joe Banner for insight into how to negotiate a cap. To their discredit, the Flyers either never understood or declined to follow Banner’s advice. Eight games into the 2006-07 season, the Flyers were 1-6-1. On a Sunday morning in late October that year, they announced that coach Ken Hitchcock had been fired and that Clarke had resigned as general manager.
The easy way out

Immediately after the announcement, Clarke told reporters: “I felt strongly that from the end of last season on — I don’t know if I was burned out or tired or something — but the decisions that had to be made, I was not willing to make them.” Six weeks later, once he had returned to the organization in a scouting and consulting role, he explained the reasons for his decision in more depth to the Daily News.

“The business of sports when you’re a GM is becoming bigger and bigger,” he said. “Personally, I like hockey way more than I like the business and the complications of the business. For me, I came here when hockey was the biggest part of it all, and a GM now is as much a business guy as he is a hockey person.

“I still had the enjoyment of the game, but I lost the enjoyment of what I was doing. It’s been a couple of months now. The fun of watching the game and stuff is still there for me. Talking hockey with hockey people, that fun is still there for me.”

Clarke’s successor, Paul Holmgren, took on the challenge of constructing a roster each season while under the confines of a salary cap, and he made enough big, bold moves to get the Flyers to the conference finals in 2008 and the Stanley Cup Final in 2010. But he was only slightly more inclined to balance the present against the future — the dance that any cap-era executive must dance — than Clarke was.

The Flyers still went all-in all the time until Hextall took over, and it has been off-putting to witness the bitterness that Clarke, others in and around the organization, and many Flyers fans still bear toward Hextall over his actions as GM. He made his mistakes and missed on his draft picks — especially Nolan Patrick in 2017, as Clarke pointed out during a podcast interview in January — but those errors wouldn’t distinguish him from Clarke, Holmgren, Fletcher, or just about any NHL GM.

No, Hextall’s greater sins seemed to be that he cut himself off from the franchise’s old guard, from the people who had hollowed out the Flyers in the first place — that he was willing to take his time, demand some patience, and withstand the unavoidable unpleasantness that comes with rebuilding a team. Better that than where the Flyers are now. Better that than where this nosedive really began, with Clarke’s reasons for walking away once the going got tougher. It was too hard, and it wasn’t fun. Whenever the Flyers get around to burying this era of their history once and for all, if they ever do, they ought to carve those words into the headstone.
- PT21

I love what Reg Dunlop had to say about him!!

Fletcher is compounding it? Hextall has the team in good cap position with a good prospect base and was competing for the playoffs. Fletcher has the team capped out with numerous bad contracts at the bottom of the league. What in the hell are you talking about?

- MJL

1. Hextall fired a Stanley Cup winning coach and hired a college coach to coach the team!
2. The Flyers were in 6th place when Hextall got fired!
3. Hextall missed on several first round picks including the 2nd overall pick!
4. The prospects Hextall did select that made it the NHL did not develop UNDER Hextall, namely Provorov and TK, and have not developed since.
5. Many high draft picks (rounds 1-3) by Hextall have not developed either!

So .. what the hell are you talking about! You have ZERO credibility on this and many topics. You pick and choose what and who you want to defend and who you want to throw under the bus. You have no objectivity at all .. so STOP embarrassing yourself!

I completely disagree that Hextall was garbage.

We'll have another press conference with excuses and they'll again tell us that they're just a few players away.
- MJL

That's right, that is why Pittsburgh has so much confidence in Hextall that they brought Burke out of retirement to be his Daddy! Just STOP your nonsense, its embarassing!

When you start being honest then maybe things will change. You didn't hope. You flat out stated after listening to Fletcher's press conference that he wasn't going to trade future assets to try and win now. You debated it with me multiple times.

Are you seriously accusing another poster of not intelligently discussing the team?


Now you have this spin that I'm just bring negative all the time just to be negative. You don't seem to recall that even early on, when the Flyers had that good run. When they made the big moves. I told you it was the wrong approach. Way before it got to this point.

It's very simple. Learn.
- MJL

"Its high time for you Melvin .. the g** neighbor is terrified ... TERRIFIED!"

You don’t think trading a first round pick for Ristolainen isn’t a wiff? Of course you haven’t seen him “wiff” yet. He’s too busy trading the picks away or the story hasn’t been written on Cam York, Tyson Foerster yet. You haven’t seen a wiff but you haven’t seen a hit either.
- SuperSchennBros

trading a 1st is not the same as wiffing on a pick, nice try.

1. Hextall fired a Stanley Cup winning coach and hired a college coach to coach the team!



- JD250

LOL. Berube was not a Stanley Cup winning coach when he was fired. It is common for a new GM to pick his own coach. Who was clamoring for Berube to stay? Nobody

2. The Flyers were in 6th place when Hextall got fired!


- JD250

The Flyers made the playoffs twice under Hextall and weren't at the bottom of the league. How many times have they made the playoffs under Fletcher?

3. Hextall missed on several first round picks including the 2nd overall pick!


- JD250

He hit on a number of picks and supplied the team with two top 4 defenseman. Two top 6 wingers and the teams starting goaltender. Among others.

4. The prospects Hextall did select that made it the NHL did not develop UNDER Hextall, namely Provorov and TK, and have not developed since.


- JD250

You don't have the first clue. Both Provorov and Konecny had strong seasons under Hextall. Provorov led all NHL defenseman in goals one season. Konecny had a solid season under Hextall. Both players were progressing nicely. They went backwards under Fletcher. Not Hextall.

5. Many high draft picks (rounds 1-3) by Hextall have not developed either!


- JD250

Some have. Some haven't

So .. what the hell are you talking about! You have ZERO credibility on this and many topics. You pick and choose what and who you want to defend and who you want to throw under the bus. You have no objectivity at all .. so STOP embarrassing yourself!
- JD250

Your post is full of inaccuracies. Get your facts right. Then get back to me.

That's right, that is why Pittsburgh has so much confidence in Hextall that they brought Burke out of retirement to be his Daddy! Just STOP your nonsense, its embarassing!
- jd250

This is the equivalent of a 5 year old temper tantrum saying "you're ugly"! It's amusing when you get all lathered up.


Kevin Allen thinks Hextall is doing a good job.

https://hockeybuzz.com/bl...ng-his-key8230/278/118122

This is the equivalent of a 5 year old temper tantrum saying "you're ugly"! It's amusing when you get all lathered up.
- MJL

If you don't respond to JD250, he/she/they might go away.

If you don't respond to JD250, he/she/they might go away.
- rayc16

I don't need him to go away or care if he does.