Flyers quietly effective at NHL draft
BUFFALO - In some ways, it was a strange draft for the Flyers. General manager Ron Hextall wanted to move up in the opening round and select a can't-miss forward. Instead, he ended up dropping back four spots.
BUFFALO - In some ways, it was a strange draft for the Flyers.
General manager Ron Hextall wanted to move up in the opening round and select a can't-miss forward. Instead, he ended up dropping back four spots.
Fans clamored for the Flyers to draft a much-needed sniper such as Kieffer Bellows or Julien Gauthier, each of whom was available at the team's original first-round draft spot (No. 18).
Instead, Hextall and his staff chose two-way center German Rubtsov, who fell to them partly because of a controversy that booted his Russian under-18 team out of the World Juniors.
The knee-jerk reaction is to say that Hextall overthought the situation, that he should have selected Bellows or Gauthier and given the team a bona fide (and much-needed) scorer down the road.
But then you exhale, sit back, and analyze what Hextall did, and, well, his plan comes into better focus.
He landed a player in the first round, Rubtsov, who probably had top-15 talent but slid to them at No. 22 because some teams were scared away by the performance-enhancing-drug scandal. A scandal, by the way, that appears to have nothing to do with the unknowing players and everything to do with the coach who supplied the pills.
Hextall also landed two other players, right winger Pascal Laberge and goalie Carter Hart, who lots of scouts figured would be selected in the first round. Both dropped to the second round, and Laberge was drafted Saturday with the pick Hextall acquired the previous night from Winnipeg.
In essence, Hextall got two potential top-six forwards (Rubtsov and Laberge) by moving down four spots in the first round and surrendering a third-round pick.
Which is why the "#InHexyWeTrust" hashtag is still going strong in the Twitterverse.
From the Flyers' standpoint, last year's draft was sexier. They selected two first-round players, defenseman Ivan Provorov, and winger Travis Konecny, who have the potential to be NHL stars.
This year, the players they drafted aren't as glitzy, but they have lots of substance, lots of the ingredients needed to build a legitimate Stanley Cup contender: size, speed, and the hunger to play both ends of the ice.
For good measure, they selected the best goalie in the draft, Carter Hart. Hextall had no expectation of drafting a goalie so early (48th overall). After all, he drafted three goalies last year and already had six netminders in the system, including Anthony Stolarz and Alex Lyon.
But he couldn't believe Hart was still there, so he strayed away from his plan and grabbed him.
"His mental game is in order; his tools are in order," Hextall said after the draft at the First Niagara Center. "He's the type of kid who bounces back from a bad game. He has all the makings of someone who has the potential to be a No. 1 guy."
Goalies are like major-league pitchers; You can never have enough good ones in your system. The overflow can be used as trade bait. That means if Hart progresses as scouts believe, he will one day be a valuable asset.
But Hextall, scouting director Chris Pryor, and their staff didn't go to Buffalo trying to upgrade the system's goalie depth. They went seeking to fortify their offensive prospects.
They did, drafting seven forwards with their 10 picks.
They added strength down the middle (Rubtsov, Connor Bunnaman) and talent, grit, and size on the wings (Laberge, Wade Allison, and Carsen Twarynski), according to scouting reports.
And they may have uncovered a sleeper or two by drafting centers Tanner Laczynski (169th overall) and Anthony Salinitri (172nd) in the sixth round. Craig Button, the highly respected draft expert for TSN, had those players ranked 99th and 84th, respectively.
"We're happy with the needs we filled," Hextall said.
With the draft completed, Hextall will turn his attention to the free-agency period, which opens Friday. Unless they can trade Mark Streit or Matt Read and free some salary-cap space, the Flyers aren't expected to be major players.
That's the bad news for a team that struggled mightily to score goals last season.
The good news: Hextall will get out of cap jail after the 2016-17 season, and he continues to restock a farm system that has improved dramatically since his arrival.
@BroadStBull