Dave Hakstol preparing for another year as head coach
VOORHEES, N.J. » Dave Hakstol acted as if he didn’t hear those chants calling for his firing at the end of another dreary playoff loss in Game 4 against the Penguins. So what’s he supposed to do, raise his fist in an unholy salute to the crowd?
Ironically, that probably would have won them over.
Instead, three seasons in after his surprise hire as Flyers coach, Hakstol is still Hakstol, the college coach from North Dakota by way of western Canada.
Certainly not a hack, just another head coach doing his job while not trying to win any audience over.
Leave that for the Tortorellas of the hockey world.
“Is it something you love hearing? No,” Hakstol said Thursday. “But I love being a part of the Philadelphia Flyers. We’ve got unbelievable fans. We’ve got some of the best fans. They’re hardworking people, they’re honest, they’re passionate. I’m here for a reason, with a real goal in mind, and that’s a part of it.
“You’ve got to prove yourself over time, that’s all. There’s no quick pathway, I’ll tell you this, I felt like when I came here three years ago just by listening and watching some things, I felt like on our bench and part of our team there was wasted emotion, some misdirected emotion. That was one thing we needed to work at correcting early on, so I’m pretty guarded by nature, I don’t want the TV cameras on me and everything else. I’m not there to put on a show. I felt like we had to reel in some of the wasted emotion . ... At the end of the day I’m going to do what I think is right for our team and try to provide what our team needs. It’ll never be for show in front of a camera or anybody else.”
Ah, another Comcast NBC-NetPhilly or whatever it’s called now tele-feature down the drain!
What the Flyers and their bosses and their fans would settle for, of course, would be a dramatic story of a lengthy spring playoff run. For the third straight season under Hakstol, that didn’t happen. Twice his teams have made the playoffs, twice they were eliminated in the first round.
Really, the Flyers over the past three seasons have been in and around mediocre. Yes, they’ve been doing so during a slow rebuild, and Hakstol’s team has done a good job of disguising that.
That said, Hakstol gave some of the right answers when asked to answer for another early exit.
“I think we have to recognize the failures of our playoffs,” he said. “We have to find a way to learn from it. There’s a lot of lessons in there, the fact that we went to six games. For me, that covers up a lot of things we didn’t do well. We weren’t good enough. We’ll take the failures out of the playoff series and those are some things that are going to spur us on to be a lot better.”
General manager Ron Hextall put it a little more succinctly.
“I’m very satisfied with the job the coaches have done,” he said. “Do we all have to get better? Absolutely. Do our coaches have to get better? Absolutely. Do I have to get better? Absolutely. Do our players have to get better? Absolutely.
“We lost out in the first round this year and that’s not good enough. We’re the Philadelphia Flyers and we take pride in being a franchise that winning is the only thing. That hasn’t changed.”
Not a lot has changed. The power play is still effective, just not as much as it once was.
The penalty killing was largely atrocious, owned up to by both coach and GM with the appropriate promises of offseason fixes.
Ivan Provorov is a blooming star and future captain. Claude Giroux and Jake Voracek and, to some offensive degree, defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere had career seasons. Matt Read, Jori Lehtera, Dale Weise, Val Filppula, Brandon Manning and Radko Gudas did not. Some of those names will be gone. A couple too many will return. But all in all there is plenty of room for Hextall to push himself for improvement via some better offseason maneuvering.
Through it all, Hakstol will coach on ... apparently with the same assistant coaches. He says that’s a good thing.
“You guys would probably be amazed at how much we evaluate ourselves,” Hakstol said.
*** NOTES » Hextall said Michal Neuvirth will have twin-hip arthroscopic surgery to see what ails him there. Joining him on the imminent surgery list is Wayne Simmonds, who will have abdominal/ core-muscle surgery to see about fixing the pelvic area problem that he said bothered him all year. Both surgery are likely Tuesday . ... Considering Simmonds’ health, Hextall is not going to jump to re-sign him. Simmonds has one year left on his deal with a $3.9 million and change cap hit . ... While Hextall said Read and Manning will be let go to pursue free agency, he’ll still consider an offer to Filppula, who’s also a pending UFA.