According to who? I've heard plenty of interviews with Sharp where he's said he always got along with Hitchcock and he didn't know where those rumours came from.
Sounds like something the Philadelphia media would make up so that people would "understand" why Clarke traded him. Remember, Clarke could do no wrong
No matter what excuse you want to give for the trade, it was still a terrible trade. Clarke and Hitchcock were clueless on how to build a team after the 04-05 lockout. It was all about speed, yet they just ignored that. I'm pretty sure Hitchcock even said that speed was overrated after the Rathje and Hatcher signings.
I don’t know what you’re seemingly annoyed about. I said they got “burned” in the Sharp & Weinrich trades. Which they did.
But saying that Clarke didn’t like to leave players buried on the NHL depth chart if they could get a chance to play elsewhere isn’t an “excuse,” it’s simply a fact. And I think it’s a good way to treat people as a manager. It’s not a computer game.
Sharp was about to turn 24. He was averaging 7:43 minutes per game as a non-regular. I believe he was subject to waivers if they sent him down. He had good but not great minor league stats to that point & 15 points in 66 career NHL games. He was a 3rd rd. pick. No one expected him to turn into the player he did. They just wanted to get something for him & not confine a 24 year old to the press box. It’s easy to rip it to shreds in hindsight, & it was a bad trade (I didn’t like it at the time, either), but a lot of context gets omitted when people bash it retrospectively.
As for being “clueless on how to build a team after the 04-05 lockout” —
The team was already built. And constructed for the pre-lockout East which was ruled by traps, obstruction, & size (Devils hockey).
Then the league did a 180 & undertook a massive crackdown on interference when the league returned in 05-06. There was no way for the Flyers to plan ahead for that. It wasn’t a gradual change with warning. It was a bam! instant complete change, & the Flyers were stuck with a roster not built for the new rules. And you can’t just completely reconstruct your roster immediately. You’ve got guys on contracts. As it is, they still managed 101 points, tied for 4th in the East.
True, next season they stunk, & Clarke was out in under a month for refusing to fire Hitchcock. But that was based on Forsberg being hurt, the team getting old & having to transition to the young players & the new rules, & Carter & Richards not quite being ready to take the reins yet.
But to say the organization wasn’t in a good place is wrong. They were set up with excellent young talent (Richards, Carter, Pitkanen, Umberger, Giroux in the system) who could play under the new rules, and loads of cap space for the stacked ‘06 free agency season. Unsurprisingly that turned into an immediate rebound.