Fletcher knows exactly what he’s in for with Flyers
PHILADELPHIA >> The pomp and somewhat strange circumstances of the Flyers’ general managers change has finally quelled, leaving the team to wonder about its immediate future and leaving fans wondering when it will start playing out the way it should.
New general manager Chuck Fletcher pinned his job interviews on his track record of solid drafts, the occasional bold trading move and the 2012 signings of top free agents Ryan Suter and Zach Parise at Minnesota.
Then there are the onice results.
Fletcher’s Wild did not make the playoffs through his first three seasons as GM. That extended the team’s early spring streak to four. Wild owner Craig Leipold had only owned the club for a little more than year when Fletcher was brought into the team’s front office after years as an assistant GM in Florida, Anaheim and Pittsburgh. All three of those teams had advanced to Stanley Cup finals during his time in their front offices.
His time to be a GM had come and Leipold bought into him.
For an owner who wanted to win and showed it with that big free agent splash in 2012, Leipold also showed patience. Back then, the Western Conference was loaded with powerful teams and Leipold - who claimed about $70 million in losses during his earlier years of owning the fledgling Nashville Predators - seemed to realize it.
He pushed for and signed off on matching 13year, $98 million contracts for both Suter and Parise. The pressure was on.
“We were trying to sign them, too,” Flyers president Paul Holmgren said Wednesday, “and we didn’t get them. So that was a bold move. Five years from now is it still going to be a good move? I don’t know.”
I’m guessing not. I’m also thinking that, despite the wild bidding process that led to Toronto giving John Tavares a seven-year, $77 million deal last summer, those dual contracts from more than six years ago will be remembered not only in Minnesota but around the league as reasons not to believe Gary Bettman the next time he poor-mouths about his owners through another NHL lockout.
After the second season of the Suter-Parise experiment and fourth season for Fletcher, the Wild finally made it to the postseason in 2013, losing to the Chicago Blackhawks in five games. The next two seasons, the Wild reached the second round, but that was as far as the club would go under Fletcher.
When the Wild lost in the first round last spring for the third straight playoff season, Leipold’s patience ran thin and Fletcher found himself out of a job. His forced vacation wouldn’t last long, first being retained as a consultant by the Devils, then winning over Holmgren and Comcast-Spectacor CEO Dave Scott in Philadelphia.
This for a general manager who in nine years in Minnesota didn’t see his team make the playoffs for three years, then never advance beyond the second round over the next six. Certainly, there is much more to judging an executive’s track record than what his team does on the ice. But that’s exactly what ultimately determines anyone’s fate in the job.
As an assistant GM in Los Angeles, Ron Hextall was part of a management team that had to rebuild the Kings from a bottom feeding club to Stanley Cup winner in 2012, and whose work greatly contributed to a second Cup win for the Kings two years later, after Hextall had rejoined the Flyers.
As a GM, Hextall’s Flyers made the playoffs three times in five seasons, with the outcome of this one very much up in the air when he was fired Nov. 26, the club at 10-11-2 and in another mini-spiral then.
The hints have been aired to extreme over the last 10 days about Hextall’s autocratic management style eventually wearing thin on Holmgren. It’s not an inaccurate take. Personalities often play a part in the winning and losing of jobs. The same is true in this case.
But in his time as GM, Hextall did exactly what he was hired to do. Job One, just as it had been for his boss Dean Lombardi with the Kings, was to rebuild a team whose farm system was alarmingly devoid of real prospects. Cap control was a close second on Hextall’s agenda, and eventually the expectation of on-ice success.
Phase Three apparently didn’t come quickly enough, with the Flyers brass perhaps thinking Hextall went overboard on the first two phases of the agenda. There were potential trades and signings that hadn’t been made.
So just as he may have been urged a little from ownership to make a pair of salary cap-constraining free agent signings six years ago for Minnesota, Fletcher comes into this job knowing exactly what his mission entails.
Keep drafting well, keep the Flyers well within comfortable parameters when it comes to the salary cap ... and oh yeah, don’t only get this team into the playoffs, but into the serious contenders mix. And fast.
Like Hextall, Fletcher has received favorable reviews from management peers over the years. Dave Scott, in a statement announcing Fletcher’s hiring earlier this week, took that a step further.
“Chuck has earned success throughout his impressive NHL career,” Scott said, “and offers the right mix of expertise, business acumen and leadership qualities that the Flyers need today as we work to achieve our ultimate goal, the Stanley Cup Championship.”
If it happens, it would be his first.
Of course, one can only live up to a billing of success if given a chance.
This is Fletcher’s. As with Hextall and all their peers, it’s his job to keep or lose.