A little outside help making difference for Flyers

Call to Fletcher and Vigneault was right call

PHILADELPHIA >> From their first shift in 1967 through the last one Ron Hextall would approve in 2018, the Flyers were a perfectly proud and successful hockey operation.

They were charitable. They were loyal. They were fun. They had a particular reputation. They connected. They won two Stanley Cups. They were in the final playoff round eight times. They were aggressive in free agency. They were, for more years than not, wellcoached. They developed Hall of Fame players. They acquired Hall of Fame players. They were relatively scandal free. They fought when they had to fight. They had an owner who connected with his fan base.

They embraced the flag in patriotic song.

All of that.

But they were not perfect. For that, and for many years, they were urged to do one thing: Trust another gut. Turn to another pair of eyes. Listen to advice from afar. Expand the tent. That’s what the Flyers have done in the last two years. And that’s why they are growing, improving and within one decent postseason of regaining

sturdy relevance.

No story about a halfcentury-plus of anything can be adequately crystallized in one sweeping generalization. And over those decades, the Flyers had occasionally turned outward for hockey counsel. They should have listened when outsider Russ Farwell warned never to trade Peter Forsberg, even if it did help to yield Hall of Fame player Eric Lindros. And, hey, if they didn’t drag Fred Shero out of the Rangers organization, they’d still be holding vigils for that first championship. It’s just that in recent years, they did need to have that door kicked in a little. Such was the risk of trusting a former goaltending legend to run the operation, then not howling in protest when he hired his son’s former college coach to stand behind the bench.

Familiarity was one thing.

Ron Hextall hiring, defending and supporting Dave Hakstol was another.

So, it changed. A newer organizational force, given rise to authority after the death of Ed Snider, was not as committed to preserving the past. Rather, it would be willing to trust another general manager’s nose for talent and selection of a real head coach. And in short order, in came Chuck Fletcher to oversee the hockey operation, and then Alain Vigneault to coach the way a major-league hockey side was supposed to be coached.

The results? Lukewarm. But promising. A 3-0 victory Monday in Detroit gave the Flyers five points in their three post-All-Star-break games and fourth place in the Metropolitan Division. And a two-game winning streak, including a 6-3 demonstration of smothering defense and opportunistic scoring Saturday over the Colorado Avalanche, was smeared by the fingerprints of the new coach and G.M.

Vigneault, who had coached him in New York, was always a fan of Kevin Hayes, a maturing twoway forward with impressive ice awareness. So Fletcher was able to ship a fifth-round draft choice to Winnipeg for his rights, his expiring contract included, then coaxed him into signing a longer-term deal. And there has Hayes been, at age 27, emerging as an assistant captain and a penalty-killing pest, one on a two-game shorthanded-goal streak.

“Every player has to figure out what’s going to permit them to stay in the NHL, be successful in the NHL, make a career,” Vigneault said. “Some guys figure it out. Some other guys don’t. Kevin started off as more as an offensive-minded skilled forward and he became a good 200-foot player. He has his moments sometimes where he’s thinking about the wrong net, but then you got to bring him back and explain to him why he’s had success.

“But he’s a good young man. His teammates love him. He’s good for our room. And hopefully he can continue to make these big plays like he’s had for us.”

Basically, while trusting that outside view, the organization found a player who perfectly embodied everything it had just spent 50 years cultivating.

During the last offseason, Fletcher also acquired defenseman Matt Niskanen and his pricey contract from Washington in exchange for Radko Gudas. A trade that seemed balanced, it was a change the Flyers needed. Like Hayes a former first-round draft choice, Niskanen has given the Flyers talent and polish and an ability to make the right play at the right time, generating a plus-4 in the victory over Colorado.

It’s why general managers are hired: To trust their own talent evaluation.

The Flyers may not win anything this season. They seldom do. And if they do make a significant playoff push, it will largely be because their former administrations drafted Carter Hart and trusted Brian Elliott and developed Sean Couturier and groomed Claude Giroux as a Hall of Fame candidate and drafted Ivan Provorov and sprung for James van Riemsdyk. Chuck Fletcher did none of that. But what he did was nicely supplement it while appointing a proven major-league hockey coach with his own ideas on when and how to practice, how to communicate with the public and when to prod a young player into high performance. That’s how Vigneault has been able to uncover the value of Joel Farabee.

Snider deserves his statue and Hextall earned his status as a franchise legend and the Flyers should be careful not to hold too loose a grasp on their glorious past. But a little outside help? It was needed, and it is working.