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Penguins / Flyers has been such a rivalry over the years, and the Hextall family holds a special place in it. Bryan Hextall played for the Penguins from 1969 to 1973. His son Ron spent training years in Pittsburgh idolizing Pen keeper Jimmy Rutherford.
Fast forward 45 or 50 years and Ron wrote his own chapters on NHL history and the Pittsburgh / Philly rivalry, and he also became the first person to be general manager of the Penguins AND Flyers.
Since Hextall’s first senior management position in Philly ended just over two years ago, what better resource than our own Steph from Broad Street Hockey to have a game of the Flyer’s take on what happened … And maybe what we can expect to move forward.
Q: For a quick overview, how would you describe Ron Hextall as a manager?
Well, he’s a good GM. Not great, but good. His ability to assess talent at the NHL level leaves a lot to be desired, but he’s a good copywriter and will help build an organization from scratch.
Q: What do you think have been the best moves Hextall has made for the Flyers over the years?
All of these moves are probably draft related – the best thing he did for me was stockpile enough picks so I could trade and draft Travis Konecny. Being able to trade Zac Rinaldo for a third round pick was just magical.
Q: On the other hand, what moves do you think he made that didn’t work as expected?
There is much more to this answer than the previous one. The Scott Hartnell for RJ Umberger and a 4th trade didn’t work out. Signing Dale Weise and Boyd Gordon on July 1 regardless of the year that happened was a disaster. The short term effects of Brayden Schenn’s trade for Jori Lehtera and two 1st round picks were felt very hard by the team – the first two players turned into Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee so we don’t hate him not really anymore, but at the time losing Brayden Schenn was really difficult.
Another move that I think qualifies as a no-move is that of the 2018-19 season with a goaltending tandem consisting of Brian Elliott and Michael Neuvirth. It was just unacceptable, and yet he thought it was good. (It wasn’t, it wasn’t right)
Q: Why did the Flyers want to leave Hextall, did that make sense to you personally at the time? Does that make more sense now?
At the time, it was a shock. We all expected Coach Dave Hakstol to be the first casualty of the season and we never thought it would actually be Ron Hextall. After a week or two of thinking it started to make sense, there were a lot of things wrong with this hockey team and the responsibility ultimately had to fall on the GM.
Now, with a certain distance, yes absolutely, he had to go. If for no reason other than being unable to admit and accept that mistakes had been made (mostly in the form of Dave Hakstol but there were plenty more) and the team was suffering. Also, as I mentioned earlier, his assessment of talent at the NHL level was not great, both in terms of when to promote a prospect and also in terms of free agents. Bad acquisitions of free agents sank the team.
Q: Since Hextall has been gone for a few years, do you have a more positive or negative perception of how some of the moves he made have gone?
Both. He’s done a lot to give the team the insight they need to be competitive and we’re all seeing the fruits of that right now. Joel Farabee, Nolan Patrick, Travis Konecny, Ivan Provorov, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Mark Friedman, Oskar Lindblom, Carter Hart, Connor Bunnaman – these are guys who have all played for the Flyers this season and they are all draft picks. Hextall.
I am irritated by the time wasted with an average team with no hope of turning things around and a GM who wanted to take his time. I respect that he wanted to get it right, but there was too much time wasted and too many souls choked out watching Andrew MacDonald and Jori Lehtera play for the Flyers.
Q: Well … it’s a little weird, isn’t it? Hextall has always been our enemy, in Pittsburgh he is best known for trying to kill Robbie Brown after a goal. It’s weird for you too, isn’t it?
He’s so weird. I called him a blood traitor. These two franchises couldn’t agree on a trade with Mark Streit almost four years ago without Tampa Bay separating them and having everyone play nicely. (Talking about this job, I just remembered Valtteri Filppula and I’m crazy once again). Look, I love all the contributors to PensBurgh, but if you have to suffer from what we’ve been doing with Hextall, I’ll probably chuckle a bit. But you’ll have some good drafts before things get too derailed.
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The Flyers have been trying to fix their goaltending situation for almost 25 years since Hextall’s first stint ended, and it’s interesting how he really fixed it until Hart develops. It can take a long time and Hextall has made some curious net decisions over the years. This could be telling, given that the Pens have had so much trouble and uneven performance at the net in recent years and these decisions will be very important.
Another bogus narrative but popular in some circles is that Hextall is going to be looking to add resistance and physicality to the penguins. It would be the opposite of what he did in Philly, and as Steph pointed out, one of Hextall’s first moves in his first season was to trade Zac Rinaldo. As Gretz pointed out, the Flyers remarkably lost all of their fight and fighters when Hextall passed. As I wrote earlier, the perfect Flyer for Hextall is a guy like Konecny who competes very hard between whistles and very skillful, but isn’t particularly intimidating.
The only other thing that really stood out that Steph spoke highly of was Hextall’s perception of “ZOMG he corrected so many mistakes” might not seem true. Hextall didn’t sign Andrew MacDonald on a ridiculously bad contract, but Hextall couldn’t find a way to dump him either. The general narrative seems to be hoping that Hextall will show up, wave a wand, and find a way to deal with a ridiculously bad contract with Mike Matheson, but it’s not really as easy as it sounds.
Like Pierre LeBrun, I am a big follower of the theory “GM can be much better in his second gig because he has learned the ropes and knows what not to do next time”. Understanding the fallout now that some time has passed since Hextall’s first GM job in Philly, he’ll certainly have to learn from what went wrong on his first gig and hopefully apply it for. it, become a better manager for the Penguins.
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