Hextall’s approach to draft still effective
Flyers’ draft picks appear plenty effective for long haul
Ron Hextall has been around long enough to have been at draft tables when this annual league weekend party meant something outside of its intended purpose.
Like any sport, it’s there to restock league teams seeking to get better and develop its own players from within.
And no, the Flyers never really played the development game that way until Ron Hextall took on the role of general manager. Happily, perhaps notso coincidentally, that occurred at about the same time that the NHL Draft weekend turned boring as hell.
For the Flyers ... maybe that’s been a good thing?
Asked after adding two more kids to what is now a growing Flyers prospect pool Friday night if he’d considered moving up in the first round, Hextall answered, “There wasn’t really much there.” Really? No more Eric Lindros-style draft weekend bidding wars for a player wanting out?
No more summer unloading of unwanted contracts?
“We are excited. This is a good draft. There’s going to be a lot of good players (to) come out of this draft. You look back in 10 years from now and you’re kind of like, ‘Oh boy.’”
– Philadelphia Flyers general manager Rob Hextall on the 2018 NHL Draft..
No more major rental players from the previous spring needing his rights to be sprung elsewhere before the opening of free agency?
No more trading up two picks to get into a top-5 spot, as the Flyers did in 2002 to get No. 4 Joni Pitkanen?
And of course, there’s the recent-years realities of payroll max, individual team salary caps and several post-draft days of allowable activity to prepare for the July 1 bell, all of which has conspired to make the draft more of a weekend to get your house in order rather than bring down the drafting house with major moves.
More boring? Yes. But hey, there’s still the kids to consider.
“We are excited,” Hextall said in summarizing his first round. “This is a good draft. There’s going to be a lot of good players (to) come out of this draft. You look back in 10 years from now and you’re kind of like, ‘Oh boy.’
“That’s why people look at it and go, ‘Wow, geez, you took a guy from a lower level.’ Then you look back in 10 years, and I’m not saying this is true with Jay, and you go, ‘You should’ve taken that shot at him despite the fact that the hockey world felt like he should go later.’”
Well, of course he’s saying that’s true with Jay.
Hextall signed off on O’Brien at No. 19 overall despite the kid from Thayer Academy being ranked in the low-to-mid 30s of North American prospects on most draft boards. But there’s a pedigree at work here: Thayer once produced a pair of friends and Flyers by the names of Jeremy Roenick and Tony Amonte. Current NHL defender Brooks Orpik also went there. In O’Brien, Hextall said he sees a true center with strength, grit, skill and Southy-Boston savvy in one intriguing package.
What he doesn’t see if much size (5-11, 175).
“He’s a really smart player, really good hockey sense,” Hextall said. “He’s competitive, he’s strong, he’s got a little agitator in him. He’s got a really good shot and sees the ice well. He’s a really good hockey player. He’s a little bit undersized but we think he’s going to be a fit kid and a strong kid. We really liked him.
“There were a number of guys today that went like that. This is one of those drafts. There’s a lot of really good players. Probably a little bit light on the high-end players but there’s a lot of really good players, which is why players go in a lot of different orders.”
For Hextall and his team of scouts, a group he likes to refer to as risk takers — which is exactly what these boring parties need — there might not have been a great difference in the order of Farabee (6-0 and maybe 165 with weidripping wet) and O’Brien. Both are undersized but skilled forwards, both can play center (though Farabee is a true scoring left winger), both are shining products of the U.S. National Team Development Program.
Both are also playing next year in Hockey East, Farabee at Boston University, O’Brien at Providence.
In three years’ time (or maybe two?), maybe they’ll be thinking pro thoughts together.
As it is, with Hextall’s two latest first-round additions to what had been a pretty thin forward development system just a couple of years ago, he’s thinking grand thoughts for a couple of seasons down the road.
By then, Ivan Provorov and Shayne Gostisbehere should be an elite top NHL defensive pair. Travis Sanheim should be a two-way second-pair stalwart, maybe with Robert Hagg by his side. Carter Hart can be seen as the starting goalie, and a good one. And up front, Travis Konecny and Nolan Patrick continue to supplant people like Claude Giroux and Jake Voracek as forward leaders.
Hextall has indeed spent this draft and his four previous ones rebuilding the Flyers’ system. It’s what he’s done best as a hockey executive, helping out for several years in Los Angeles before coming back here.
Yes, he’s fallen somewhat short in trades and has yet to prove ready, willing or able to play the free agent market the way it could be played. But he’s also provided the Flyers with something their previous front office leaders somehow couldn’t — a sense of fiscal responsibility in the cap era.
It might be boring, but it’s effective. And with a week to go before July 1, who knows?
Maybe Hextall will loosen up a bit, drop the veil of boring fiscal manager ... and get the free agent physical defenseman and third-line center the Flyers really need for this season.