Post-Game Talk: #67: Capitals at FLYERS, Wednesday, Mar. 6, 2019, 7:30 pm ET

TCTC

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The Carter and Richards trades are two of the best trades in team history, and they were both moves made with an eye toward the future. Couturier and Voracek are still core players on this team. Schenn and Simmonds moved on after several good years but we recouped Frost, Farabee and Hartman + a pick for them.

Holmgren certainly made a lot of disastrous moves after that but without those trades the team would have been mired in an even worse state for the past 6 years. The average GM makes a trade like that never.
Hextall could've made similar trades if he was serious about a long term rebuild. Giroux ad Voracek would've fetched similar or even better returns.
Frankly, Hextall didn't have the balls to make that type of move. He didn't even trade Simmonds...
 
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TCTC

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After they got in the playoffs on a shootout the last game of the regular season.

I’ll give him the Pronger trade. Best move he made. (But the over 35 contract mistake was criminal.)

But Holmgren inherited a team with massive cap space, good draft picks, & really good young players.

He left it in cap hell & with a barren farm system. And luckily he got bailed out of many of his worst mistakes.

Signing Briere, Timonen, Hartnell, & Biron his first summer due to good cap management before he took over — Hextall sure wasn’t left with that possibility.
You still have to make the right moves. You have to identify the right players. Timonen, Hartnell and Briere were exactly the players we needed.
 
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freakydallas13

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Signing Briere, Timonen, Hartnell, & Biron his first summer due to good cap management before he took over — Hextall sure wasn’t left with that possibility.

Um, there was a lot of capspace available the last 2 or so years, Hex just never did anything with it other than sign JVR last summer. There was even speculation that signing JVR was a move that was pushed on him by Dave Scott and Holmgren, which if true means he really added nothing via trades or signings to this team. Homer also added Coburn via trade before he even got to free agency, proving he knew how to identify talent and acquire it. Hextall was either dismal at evaluating NHL talent, or against ever trying to trade for it.

Let's put it this way:

Take away players Hex drafted or signed as prospects like Myers. What is his stamp on his team without draft picks? Just JVR?
 
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baudib1

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I think Hextall was the right guy for the team over the course of his tenure here. Ideally, he would have been hired a year earlier (before the Lecavalier, AMac signings, and before the Morin-Hagg draft) and fired (along with Hakstol) a year earlier.
 

Ghosts Beer

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You still have to make the right moves. You have to identify the right players. Timonen, Hartnell and Briere were exactly the players we needed.
Ok, but inheriting the massive cap space to sign those players, plus an 18 y/o Giroux, 21 y/o Richards & Carter, 26 y/o Gagne, Peter Forsberg, 23 y/o Pitkanen a few years from being 4th overall, a 24 y/o Umberger, a still good Knuble, #2 overall pick (JVR traded for Luke Schenn)... I wouldn’t credit Holmgren with any great team building. I do know that what he left vs. what he inherited was a mess, which seems more like team deconstruction.
 

freakydallas13

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Homer with capspace in 6 months added Coburn, Briere, Hartnell, and Timmonen while only giving up a later 1st round pick and Alexei Zhitnik.

Hextall with 2 years of capspace added.....JVR.
 

Striiker

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Um, there was a lot of capspace available the last 2 or so years, Hex just never did anything with it other than sign JVR last summer. There was even speculation that signing JVR was a move that was pushed on him by Dave Scott and Holmgren, which if true means he really added nothing via trades or signings to this team. Homer also added Coburn via trade before he even got to free agency, proving he knew how to identify talent and acquire it. Hextall was either dismal at evaluating NHL talent, or against ever trying to trade for it.

Let's put it this way:

Take away players Hex drafted or signed as prospects like Myers. What is his stamp on his team without draft picks? Just JVR?
:laugh: That's like saying "take away players Holmgren traded for or signed as FAs"...

Yeah, it's less impressive if you intentionally exclude the best things the guy did. And what Hextall did is the only way to build a contender in the modern NHL, which is something Holmgren didn't realize.

Hextall did exactly the right thing, outside of his handling of the coaching.
 
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Ghosts Beer

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Um, there was a lot of capspace available the last 2 or so years, Hex just never did anything with it other than sign JVR last summer. There was even speculation that signing JVR was a move that was pushed on him by Dave Scott and Holmgren, which if true means he really added nothing via trades or signings to this team. Homer also added Coburn via trade before he even got to free agency, proving he knew how to identify talent and acquire it. Hextall was either dismal at evaluating NHL talent, or against ever trying to trade for it.

Let's put it this way:

Take away players Hex drafted or signed as prospects like Myers. What is his stamp on his team without draft picks? Just JVR?
I’m certainly not arguing Hextall did a good job managing the Flyers’ NHL roster. I’m glad he’s gone. Just pointing out he inherited a way worse situation than Homer did & didn’t have the same options.
 

freakydallas13

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:laugh: That's like saying "take away players Holmgren traded for or signed as FAs"...

Yeah, it's less impressive if you intentionally exclude the best things the guy did. And what Hextall did is the only way to build a contender in the modern NHL, which is something Holmgren didn't realize.

Hextall did exactly the right thing, outside of his handling of the coaching.

Now compare drafts.

It's almost like they are both good at one side of being a GM and bad at the other.

Kind of what I have been saying all along.
 

TCTC

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:laugh: That's like saying "take away players Holmgren traded for or signed as FAs"...

Yeah, it's less impressive if you intentionally exclude the best things the guy did. And what Hextall did is the only way to build a contender in the modern NHL, which is something Holmgren didn't realize.

Hextall did exactly the right thing, outside of his handling of the coaching.
He wasted the prime years of our franchise player. You either commit to a rebuild and trade Giroux while he is in his prime, or you don't slow-cook every single prospect. How many years did it take Sanheim and Myers to actually play an NHL game?
On the Flyers right now there are 3 forwards Hextall drafted, one of them being 2nd overall pick. 3 forwards after 5 years of Hextall rebuilding...
 

Striiker

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It's almost like they are both good at one side of being a GM and bad at the other.

Kind of what I have been saying all along.
Except it’s important to note that in the modern NHL drafting and developing is the primary way you build a contender. On top of that, Hextall wasn’t in a position to be making trades and FA signings like Holmgren was.

The trades Hextall did make were absolutely fantastic and the JVR signing was also a very good step forward once we got to the point where adding players made sense.
 
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Striiker

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See.. this is the exact problem with the Hextall complaints. There's legit things to criticize him for and I'm 100% on board with them, but then it goes too far and the complaints get ridiculous.

He wasted the prime years of our franchise player. You either commit to a rebuild and trade Giroux while he is in his prime, or you don't slow-cook every single prospect. How many years did it take Sanheim and Myers to actually play an NHL game?
On the Flyers right now there are 3 forwards Hextall drafted, one of them being 2nd overall pick. 3 forwards after 5 years of Hextall rebuilding...

-Giroux is still in his prime
-You don't need to trade off your core while rebuilding
-Not every prospect was slow cooked, that's an exaggeration
-Looking at number of forwards on the team is a ridiculous way to judge the drafting/rebuilding for multiple reasons
 

freakydallas13

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Except it’s important to note that in the modern NHL drafting and developing is the primary way you build a contender. On top of that, Hextall wasn’t in a position to be making trades and FA signings like Holmgren was.

The trades Hextall did make were absolutely fantastic and the JVR signing was also a very good step forward once we got to the point where adding players made sense.
The trades were good at doing what Hextall was good at, which was acquiring and using draft picks.

The trades were absolute failures at bringing in serviceable NHL players to improve the team.

Building a prospect pool is important to building a contender, but you can't just stick your head in the sand after the draft every year and hope your prospects carry the team (especially if you are obsessed with playing your terrible veteran acquisitions over your prospects). Hextall had the last 2 years to improve the team via free agency or trades and he didn't, just acknowledge this and we can all move on.

If his plan was to wait on draft picks for 5 years before the team became competitive, then fine, I'm on board. But in the mean time he should have gone full rebuild, traded Simmonds and one or both of Jake and G. He did no such thing. Deadhead was right when he said Hex's biggest failure was not going full rebuild, because now we have prospects that are about to start contributing right when our top players will begin to decline.
 
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baudib1

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1. Half of Homer's draft picks were converted into Pronger, Hartnell and Timonen.
2. A lot of the draft capital Hextall had came from trading assets Holmgren had acquired.

For instance, the Konecny pick is the end result of multiple transactions, at the heart of which is Zhitnik for Coburn. The Frost and Farabee picks result from the Richards for Brayden Schenn trade.

There's no doubt that Hextall has been able to find good prospects deep in the draft and Hextall absolutely deserves credit for hitting home runs on a lot of these picks, but to this point Couturier and Gostisbehere are better picks than anything Hextall did.

I don't have any doubt that some number of good players will emerge from the pool of Allison/Rubtsov/Ratcliffe/Strome/Cates/Hogberg etc. but it's also true the team would likely have been better served with a Hartnell/Timonen type trade somewhere along the line (let's say, the Rubtsov pick or the O'Brien pick).
 
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Striiker

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The trades were good at doing what Hextall was good at, which was acquiring and using draft picks.

The trades were absolute failures at bringing in serviceable NHL players to improve the team.

So they were good at the entire point of the trades? Yeah.. that's the point. He wasn't trying to bring in serviceable NHL players.

Building a prospect pool is important to building a contender, but you can't just stick your head in the sand after the draft every year and hope your prospects carry the team (especially if you are obsessed with playing your terrible veteran acquisitions over your prospects). Hextall had the last 2 years to improve the team via free agency or trades and he didn't, just acknowledge this and we can all move on.

JVR wasn't added to improve the team? When it was time to add, he did.

If his plan was to wait on draft picks for 5 years before the team became competitive, then fine, I'm on board. But in the mean time he should have gone full rebuild, traded Simmonds and one or both of Jake and G. He did no such thing. Deadhead was right when he said Hex's biggest failure was not going full rebuild, because now we have prospects that are about to start contributing right when our top players will begin to decline.
That's ridiculous. It's not either full Holmgren style f***-the-future mode or burn it down and tank, with no in between...

There was no reason to trade guys like Giroux and Voracek because he rightly predicted that they could still be legit players when the prospects were being added to the team.
 

Striiker

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1. Half of Homer's draft picks were converted into Pronger, Hartnell and Timonen.
2. A lot of the draft capital Hextall had came from trading assets Holmgren had acquired.

For instance, the Konecny pick is the end result of multiple transactions, at the heart of which is Zhitnik for Coburn. The Frost and Farabee picks result from the Richards for Brayden Schenn trade.


There's no doubt that Hextall has been able to find good prospects deep in the draft and Hextall absolutely deserves credit for hitting home runs on a lot of these picks, but to this point Couturier and Gostisbehere are better picks than anything Hextall did.

I don't have any doubt that some number of good players will emerge from the pool of Allison/Rubtsov/Ratcliffe/Strome/Cates/Hogberg etc. but it's also true the team would likely have been better served with a Hartnell/Timonen type trade somewhere along the line (let's say, the Rubtsov pick or the O'Brien pick).

:laugh: What a crazy way to try to take credit from Hextall.

By that logic Holmgren gets no credit for the Richards and Carter trades because he didn't draft them...
 
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baudib1

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:laugh: What a crazy way to try to take credit from Hextall.

By that logic Holmgren gets no credit for the Richards and Carter trades because he didn't draft them...

It takes a lot more foresight and vision to trade your two best players when you're one year removed from the SCF than it does to trade Coburn when you're out of the playoffs.

Hextall did really well with these trades and picks but the idea that the cupboard was totally bare is quite overstated. Alexei Zhitnik doesn't get you anything in 2015.
 

Ghosts Beer

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It's almost like they are both good at one side of being a GM and bad at the other.

Kind of what I have been saying all along.
Holmgren was good at dumping money before he completely screwed up a great cap situation. He also made more horrific management blunders than any GM I can think of.

Hextall was a reticent GM — certainly the antithesis of Holmgren — but he only really had one offseason of any legit UFA options, & he went hard for Stastny — but Stastny wanted Vegas. Can’t force a UFA to sign.
 

freakydallas13

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So they were good at the entire point of the trades? Yeah.. that's the point. He wasn't trying to bring in serviceable NHL players.



JVR wasn't added to improve the team? When it was time to add, he did.


That's ridiculous. It's not either full Holmgren style ****-the-future mode or burn it down and tank, with no in between...

There was no reason to trade guys like Giroux and Voracek because he rightly predicted that they could still be legit players when the prospects were being added to the team.

Oh, I forgot, we're not allowed to try and improve the roster with trades, draft picks are the only acceptable assets we can get in return unless we are contenders. Better retroactively cancel the Coburn for Zhitnik trade, Homer wasn't allowed to make that because his team finished dead last that year.

JVR was added to improve the team, but the team did not improve this year. Chalk that up as another failure at addressing the needs of the team via free agency.

I have admitted numerous times that Hex did a good job building up the prospect pool and that it was necessary for the future of this team. Can you admit that he has more faults than just who he chose as coach? Because "Hextall did exactly the right thing, outside of his handling of the coaching" is the exact mentality I have been arguing against. You can defend Hex until your dying breath, and you can critique Homer for a lot of the things he did as GM, but in the end they were both failures, and if you think the only thing that makes Hex a failure was his coaching choice then I don't know what to say at this point.
 

Ghosts Beer

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Oh, I forgot, we're not allowed to try and improve the roster with trades, draft picks are the only acceptable assets we can get in return unless we are contenders. Better retroactively cancel the Coburn for Zhitnik trade, Homer wasn't allowed to make that because his team finished dead last that year.

JVR was added to improve the team, but the team did not improve this year. Chalk that up as another failure at addressing the needs of the team via free agency.

I have admitted numerous times that Hex did a good job building up the prospect pool and that it was necessary for the future of this team. Can you admit that he has more faults than just who he chose as coach? Because "Hextall did exactly the right thing, outside of his handling of the coaching" is the exact mentality I have been arguing against. You can defend Hex until your dying breath, and you can critique Homer for a lot of the things he did as GM, but in the end they were both failures, and if you think the only thing that makes Hex a failure was his coaching choice then I don't know what to say at this point.
I’m not sure what you think are my thoughts on Hextall, but I’m sure not the Hextall apologist you apparently believe.
 

Striiker

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Oh, I forgot, we're not allowed to try and improve the roster with trades, draft picks are the only acceptable assets we can get in return unless we are contenders. Better retroactively cancel the Coburn for Zhitnik trade, Homer wasn't allowed to make that because his team finished dead last that year.
:laugh: What?

Again, the entire point was to draft and develop for the future of this team. We weren't going to be getting young guys like Patrick or Provorov or Sanheim in a trade... you get them through the draft or not at all. There was no point in adding roster players, when they had no chance to compete anyway, and just potentially hurt their draft position. He wasn't actively tanking but he also wasn't going to actively make hurt the draft either.

JVR was added to improve the team, but the team did not improve this year. Chalk that up as another failure at addressing the needs of the team via free agency.

Uh no.

By this logic the Richards and Carter trades were failures because the team didn't improve the next year. That's not how you judge trades or signings. JVR makes the team better and we'd be worse without him, so the signing was clearly a success.

I have admitted numerous times that Hex did a good job building up the prospect pool and that it was necessary for the future of this team. Can you admit that he has more faults than just who he chose as coach? Because "Hextall did exactly the right thing, outside of his handling of the coaching" is the exact mentality I have been arguing against. You can defend Hex until your dying breath, and you can critique Homer for a lot of the things he did as GM, but in the end they were both failures, and if you think the only thing that makes Hex a failure was his coaching choice then I don't know what to say at this point.

Yeah, there was other stuff that I disagreed with and lots of small individual actions I didn't like, but overall coaching was the key aspect of the job that was a massive net negative that hurt the team.

He was far from perfect but overall the impact of his tenure is projecting to be a lot more positive than negative, simply because the good he did is going to stretch into the future and most of the negatives are already gone. If we win a cup in the next 10 years it's likely to be on the backs of players he added to the roster, like Provorov, Hart, Patrick, etc etc etc... while Hakstol will be a mere memory.
 

Ghosts Beer

I saw Goody Fletcher with the Devil!
Feb 10, 2014
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1. Half of Homer's draft picks were converted into Pronger, Hartnell and Timonen.
2. A lot of the draft capital Hextall had came from trading assets Holmgren had acquired.

For instance, the Konecny pick is the end result of multiple transactions, at the heart of which is Zhitnik for Coburn. The Frost and Farabee picks result from the Richards for Brayden Schenn trade.

There's no doubt that Hextall has been able to find good prospects deep in the draft and Hextall absolutely deserves credit for hitting home runs on a lot of these picks, but to this point Couturier and Gostisbehere are better picks than anything Hextall did.

I don't have any doubt that some number of good players will emerge from the pool of Allison/Rubtsov/Ratcliffe/Strome/Cates/Hogberg etc. but it's also true the team would likely have been better served with a Hartnell/Timonen type trade somewhere along the line (let's say, the Rubtsov pick or the O'Brien pick).
I think Hextall was fantastic at drafting & managing the cap. I think when it came to the Flyers he wanted drones with briefcases who were never late & checked their blackberries until 3AM before a 4 hour nap & doing it all again.
 

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