Hayes remains ready to answer any call
One way or another this hockey season, Kevin Hayes was going to respond to a call to duty. It was just a matter of when.
Acquired by the Flyers in an offseason trade from Winnipeg and given a $50 million sweetener to stick around for seven years, Hayes was destined to inject fresh leadership into a room turned stale. A favorite of Alain Vigneault, who had coached him with the Rangers, Hayes was a player whose contributions would not necessarily be reflected in his stat line. He would work. He would be versatile. He would excel at both ends of the ice. And eventually, his way with teammates would be welcome and vital.
It was happening exactly that way in a surprisingly vibrant Flyers season, one breeding legitimate championship hopes. Hayes was at his best on the ice and in the room, providing big goals and fun nicknames for his teammates. Though Claude Giroux, Jake Voracek and Sean Couturier were still around for their own forms of guidance, it was clear: Day by day, Hayes was rising to the top of that chain.
“It’s always hard when you sign a big contract and go to a new team, especially one that wasn’t really in a full rebuild,” Hayes was saying Thursday, in a conference call with hockey writers.
“They kind of had their leadership group for a while.
“I thought I was pretty lucky because I went right in with A.V. That was kind of a slow challenge for me. When I first got there, I wasn’t really nervous. I was just cognizant of how loud to be or how much to talk. I didn’t want to step on any toes. Giroux, Voracek, Couturier. It’s kind of been their team for a while. I was just sitting on the end, to see how they acted and to follow their lead.
“It probably took about two weeks. They were probably annoyed with me in the beginning with how much I talked and kind of joked around. I think they kind of liked it. I still think they like it. So it’s working.”
It was working, anyway. The Flyers had won nine of their last 10 before coronavirus concerns stopped the regular season with 13 games left. During a nine-game winning streak, Hayes had supplied six goals, three points and an onice presence that the lagging franchise had lacked. To that, he was the personification of the talent-evaluation skills of Vigneault and general manager Chuck Fletcher, virtual outsiders able to provide a fresh and welcome view for a franchise that could have gone either way.
“Yeah, he’s a beauty,” Fletcher said. “I think we all knew he had a strong personality, but he’s had a very positive impact on our franchise. He’s played very well. He plays a very important role on our team in that second-line center spot as well as power play, penalty kill, even strength, three-on-three and even shootouts.
“He’s had an impact in every area that a player can have an impact in. He’s a good teammate. He’s a really good human being. He cares about winning. He cares about the people in the organization. He cares about the fans. You can’t make that stuff up. His personality is who he is. He’s a real fine human being.”
As a hockey player, Hayes did his part to boost the Flyers. As a human being, he is doing what he can to blunt the spread of the virus, remaining as isolated as possible in his Boston home, minutes away from his large, supportive family. He’s found that he enjoys cooking and apparently can whip up a tasty eggplant parmigiana. Daily, he checks in with teammates. Even if he has a secret motive, it’s what captains or captains-elect will do. That motive?
“I see if they want to play Xbox,” he said. “I’ll hit up (Joel) Farabee for Call of Duty.”
Call of Duty is Hayes’ game of choice, the title appropriate, given how he accepts any assignment on a hockey team.
“The only positive out of this for me is I became a gamer again,” he said. “I haven’t played Xbox in three years. Now I am fully addicted to playing
Call of Duty.”
Eventually, Hayes plans to answer the Flyers’ call again, perhaps this season, but maybe next.
“I think everyone’s a little bit concerned about that,” he said. “I mean it sucks because you play this game, you build friendships and you build memories. You build moments where you want to go for the Stanley Cup.
“I felt as if our team had come together in a great way. We were really playing for one and another. Everyone was buying in to the system that AV put together. There’s a possibility that we’ll never see the outcome of that. I assume we will be this good all the time, but who knows if we’ll have this feeling again? It’s kind of sad that you can’t go to the rink every day. But everyone’s dealing with this. It’s not just us.
“I don’t know where I would be without hockey,” he added. “I do know my worst days are definitely not comparable to everyone else’s worst day.”
He’s 27 and wealthy. As soon as duty calls, he will continue to help reshape a hockey team that needed his personality. It’s just that matter of when.