Hextall should hold out hope for Hischier
While the Flyers’ front office bosses are probably still shaking their heads at their stroke of ping-pong fortune Saturday night, they also have a chance to reflect before getting back to work on projecting an NHL Draft that looms a little more than seven weeks hence.
That’s because they bucked the odds that had them looking at only a 2.4 percent chance of moving from the No. 13 draft spot overall to the No. 2 position. Selecting there enables them to cut down on their prep work a touch.
Barring the bizarre notion that they’d trade down in the draft, the Flyers will be staring at two options that are far and away better than the rest, centers Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier. Making that second drafting position all the more convenient is that the choice between the two lies with the New Jersey Devils.
Ron Hextall and Co. don’t even have to stress over the decision. They’ll take the player the Devils don’t, presuming, that is, they don’t go absolutely crazy and trade the pick for, say, a topshelf veteran defender or right wing.
“You can’t say no to anything,” Hextall said in a conference call Saturday night, “because you don’t know what’s going to come your way. Do I envision moving the No. 2 pick? No, I don’t. In saying that, if something comes along that I can’t say no to, we’ll certainly look at it. But I‘d say right now we’d be pretty comfortable making the pick.”
Fortunately, Hextall’s track record would indicate that he isn’t that nutty ... not in that way, anyway. And the Devils and Flyers are both so scoring challenged that it would seem like almost a guarantee that both clubs would go after one of these two standout prospect centers that may be capable of turning an offense around sooner rather than later.
Nolan’s uncle James Patrick was a highly regarded NHL defensman for 20 years, and his father Steve played six seasons in the league. This younger Patrick was on top of everybody’s prospects lists a year ago, when with a defensive teammate by the name of Ivan Provorov they led Brandon to a Western (Junior) Hockey League title and berth in the Memorial Cup. He registered 102 points in 72 games, but he’s miss the World Juniors in the offseason because of a sports hernia.
Then he was injured twice more this past season, limiting him to only 33 games. But he did score 20 goals in those 33 games.
So the questions will linger how much Patrick’s status was hurt by the injury plagued season he had, while Hischier — still the presumptive No. 2 on most scounting boards (including Central Scouting) — came out of the murky depths of hockey in Switzerland to have a fantastic World Junior tournament.
Everyone took notice, then he promptly scored 38 goals and 86 points in 57 games this past season in his first taste of Canadian major junior hockey, for Halifax of the QMJHL.
Though Devils general manager Ray Shero draws a little of that foggy unpredictability from the bloodlines of his father Freddy, he knows enough to see that the Patrick injuries in one junior season does not mean he should be considered injury prone. What his performance a year ago should still mean is that when healthy, Patrick has given every indication of developing into a dominant, two-way center that can very quickly become the heart of a team.
At least the Flyers should hope that Shero thinks that way, because Hischier is very much the most attractive prospect of the two. He carries with him a little intrigue, since scouts that saw him play as a 16-year-old at the Elite Jr. A level in Switzerland — then later at the World Junior under-18s — got the first word out about a prospect that looked pretty special.
That was way back in 2016. This is now...
“He manages the game like an adult, like a man,” Ottawa Senators coach Guy Boucher told the New York Times recently about Hischier. “Great vision, great poise, but he’s always in the right place defensively, too, which puts him ahead of a lot of young guys — they rarely have both sides of the ice figured out, especially at that age.”
Added Halifax coach Cam Russell: “There’s no limit to what he can do.”
By his numbers alone while winning the QMJHL rookie of the year award, Hischier has been compared at various times to Detroit all-timer Pavel Datsyuk, and in more timely terms, to Connor McDavid.
He’s a smaller player than the 6-foot-3, 194-pound Patrick, but at 6-0, 174, Hischier not only projects to be a highlight-video playmaker, but one with a physical edge to his game.
Project him into a Flyers lineup in a couple of years (or even next fall) and he could size up as a fitting linemate for a still developing Travis Konecny. It certainly adds excitment to what had shaped up to be another slow Flyers offseason, even if it’s Ron Hextall’s job to throw water all over those thoughts.
“Any player, as you know from my history, they have to come in and they have to earn it,” Hextall said. “If we draft a player at No. 2 and he comes in and earns it, then he’ll be on our team. If he needs more time, he’s going to need more time.”
If that player is Hischier, it stands to reason that with only one season of junior experience he could benefit from one more. But he also could show in training camp — just as 18-yearolds Konency and Provorov did last September — that their skill sets far outpace a junior level, enough to expedite a trip to the bigs.
No one regrets those two decisions last season, and by all the scouting raves, Hischier could prove to be a player following that same route.
But then, Shero has the power to alter that route farther north up the New Jersey Turnpike.
If so ... Patrick would seem to be a very reasonable consolation prize.