How Much of Fletcher’s Failures is Hextall’s Fault?

Chuck Fletcher has been removed as president of operations and as general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers. You will be hard pressed to find a teary fan of the Flyers about this. Fans (including me) were calling for his head last year after failing to sign any good free agents and failing to improve the team; save for the hiring of John Tortorella as new coach.

His drafts have been suspect, at best, he has made questionable signings and deals (or lack of them), and has shown so much incompetence, that some have suggested that even a baby or monkey could do a better job. And while I think Danny Briere will be fine, I gotta agree that a monkey could do just as well as Fletcher has the last few seasons.

However, if we can take our fandom and our emotions out of the equation, there is probably a lot more to the story. For example, rumors swirled a lot last year about Fletcher trying to move James van Riemsdyk but was met with scorn by other GMs. The only way they’d have taken him as salary cap relieve would be if we coughed up a first rounder or more; in a haunting repeat of the Gostisbehere trade. His hands were tied because of his incompetence.

But that’s not all that tied his hands. His predecessor, Ron Hextall, has a lot to do with the state of the Flyers right now. While Hexy, the general manager from May 2014 to December 2018, was a bit bolder in his moves, a lot of them have seriously hampered this team. Let’s take a look at what Hextall has done to this team.

First of all, Hextall was following in the legacy of his predecessors Paul Holmgren and Bobby Clarke. Both were known for doling out big contracts and putting this team so dangerously close to the salary cap as possible (Andrew MacDonald anyone?). Hextall did the same and Fletcher followed that. But when he came here, he came with a good pedigree as assistant GM in Los Angeles, which had just won two Stanley Cups. Surely he could do that here, right?

Trades and Free Agents

Hextall’s first move was to trade fan favorite Scott Hartnell to Columbus for RJ Umberger. Umberger was a former Flyer who had done better since leaving Philly while Hartnell was a fading star. However, the team took on more salary in the deal, saw Hartnell continue to perform for CBJ, while Umberger never took off.  He also signed Michael Del Zotto and Nick Schultz to free agent deals.

The following season, he traded Vincent LeCavalier and Luke Schenn to Los Angeles for Jordan Weal, a prospect who never really panned out in Philly. But because of a tight salary cap situation (this is an ongoing theme for almost a decade), no real free agents came in except a flurry of backup goalies who would constantly get injured. The team also fired Craig Berube as coach and took on Dave Hakstol on to guide the team.

The following season as the general manager, he tried to be like Howie Roseman of the Eagles. Most of his trades were trading draft picks to move up or down; much as he had the year before. He did trade Mark Streit, a competent and reliable defender to Tampa Bay for Valtteri Filppula in the hopes he could regain his once 20+ goal stature. Fun fact…he did not and Streit went on to win a Stanley Cup as a Penguin after the Bolts flipped him to Pittsburgh. But for the second year in a row, the team stood pat during free agency and made no moves. As other teams got better, the Flyers core got older. They did, however, buy out Umberger’s contract in an effort to free up some money.

However, in 2016-17, the Flyers signed Radko Gudas to a four year deal. Shayne Gostisbehere was re-signed to a six year contract. Brayden Schenn was also re-signed for four years. The year before, Sean Couturier was locked up for six years while Jakub Voracek reupped for eight years.

In his last full year as GM, Hextall brought in Brian Elliott as goalie. He traded Brayden Schenn to St Louis for Jori Lehtera and two first round picks and traded for Petr Mrazek at the trade deadline. But again, Elliott was the only main free agent they got. Again, instead of upgrading their roster, they stood pat and did nothing. For each year of Hextall’s term as general manager, the team made no major moves on the free agent market….save one. In 2018, he re-signed James van Riemsdyk to an expensive five year deal.

Hextall was dismissed in 2018. None of the trades made during the offseason or season were of any major importance, trading away bench pieces for bench pieces; draft picks for draft picks.

Hextall tied his fortunes to Hakstol. When that blew up in his face, he was gone. He, like Holmgren before him, tied the fortunes of the team to signing some of the stars to long term contracts. But by giving them big and bloated contracts, it would hamper the teams for years to come; the effects of that we are still dealing with five years later.

The drafts, while starting off well, became disastrous. Patrick was always injured. O’Brien never got better. Frost is struggling and Farabee is regressing. Sanheim and Provy, while good, aren’t great. Only Konency has really paid off. The rest of the picks, the picks you count on for depth, have not been reliable.

Yes, Fletcher has been epically bad for this team. In Hextall’s four full years as general manager, the team made the playoffs twice, only to be bounced out in the first round. Since then, the team has only been to the playoffs during the Covid Bubble.

Fletcher has been a terrible general manager. I would argue that he was the worst in this team’s history. However, it hasn’t been all his fault. Many of the contracts signed by Hextall, with a few from Holmgren’s tenure, hampered what this team could do in acquiring players. To be fair, Fletcher did continue this by offering huge deals to players like Ramsus Ristolainen. But it does say something that the last “big” free agent signing by the Flyers, before JVR was Radko Gudas. Yikes. Every year we hoped to see a piece that would be added to the team that would put us over the edge. Every year, we were disappointed. Every year became “next year” as in “Next year will be our year.”

It’s going to take years to undo all the damage that has been done to this franchise over the last 10 years. It will be hard to attract a big name free agent when the team has no money. It will be hard to improve when the minor league system is devoid of many good prospects in the pipeline. We are headed for some dark times ahead. But getting rid of Fletcher is the first part of fixing this. Let’s hope Briere is up to the task.