Flyers' Ron Hextall: no similarities between goalie and GM
Hextall could be volatile as a player, but in his one year as GM, has been patient and composed.
PLUG IN Sam Hinkie's name to the YouTube search bar and here are some of the top entries:
"Sam Hinkie on Patience and Analytics";
"Sam Hinkie at the 2014 Draft Lottery";
And, my personal favorite, "Who is Sam Hinkie?''
Plug in Chip Kelly's name to the YouTube search bar and you get an assortment of press conferences, play breakdowns and, as of yesterday, some ridiculous race-baiting from the mouth of LeSean McCoy.
Plug in Ruben Amaro Jr. and there are even more press conferences, even one of him crying as he fired Charlie Manuel as manager in the summer of 2013.
Ah, but plug in Ron Hextall's name and, well . . .
Put your feet up, take your shoes off, and get ready to be entertained for a while.
Fights, slashes, more fights, tantrums. The man's name is like a portal into hockey's violent, impulsive and tempestuous side. Hell, watch "Ron Hextall's Career Highlights Music Video" and, lo and behold, a Hanson Brothers video shows up on the sidebar.
Honest.
There are no press conferences in sight.
Which makes the former fiery Flyers goaltender's first year as their general manager all the more startling.
"I mean, thank God I'm not the same as a GM as I was as a player,'' Hextall said yesterday, laughing. "That wouldn't be a good thing.''
No it wouldn't. What's remarkable is there is no hint of that guy in the version that's running the team. Paul Holmgren was measured too, but every so often the tough guy from his fighting, bashing playing days emerged. And while Hextall describes his old boss Bob Clarke as "pretty patient and thought things through a lot," he concedes that, "I'm sure the media saw him react for a couple of things.''
There was none of that in Year 1 Hextall. No well-publicized reaming-out sessions of the team after listless Sunday performances as there was during Holmgren's regime. No tantrums after near-pointless road trips. No midseason coaching changes to spark the team, no interference with the coach in place even as said coach made curious scratches and substitutions, including infamously inserting Steve Mason midway into a February game just 16 days after knee surgery and with little practice beforehand.
There was also no immediate firing of Craig Berube after the season ended. Hextall did his due diligence and then agonized for days before firing his friend and former teammate, a coach he inherited when he was promoted to the general manager's job last May.
A year ago today, to be exact.
"You have to adjust,'' he said. "Especially with the way the game is now. You're making decisions, boy, you're living with them. You better know what you're doing going in, and to me, knee-jerk decisions . . .
"I mean, there are some decisions that are easy. And you can make them quickly or whatever. But a lot of the decisions here, you better think them through. Because there's long-term ramifications that come from a lot of the decisions you make. So you better do your homework.''
Perhaps the best evidence of the alter-Hexy came after Flyer chairman Ed Snider told me that he believed the Flyers could win a Stanley Cup while they turned over their roster - one of the oldest in the league - to a younger, homegrown version.
"You don't say when you've got Giroux, and you've got Voracek, and you've got Mason and you've got the kind of pieces like Simmonds that we have that, hey, you've got to be patient, we might make the playoffs in two or three years," the chairman said that day.
"[Bleep] that.''
Yeah. Except that was exactly how Hextall operated in his first season. He took flyers on players like Nick Schultz and Michael Del Zotto, refused to rush recent draftees to help the club. His trade-deadline deals of Braydon Coburn and Kimmo Timonen added draft picks for this June and next, sending precisely that message to any veteran in a win-now mode.
As a result, Hextall will have seven of the first 103 picks in this June's draft. The Coburn trade brought back first- and third-round picks, and if Chicago wins the Stanley Cup, the Timonen trade could bring back two second-rounders.
Hextall handled his boss' comments like a tricky transaction. A few days after the season ended, he spoke of their great relationship, even argued - albeit meekly and with the same kind and respectful smile I have used when an elder has said something outrageous - that he didn't even understand the controversy.
But the smile disappeared when he was pressed about how willing he would be to give his veterans the best chance to win a Cup next year. To say, in essence, bleep it, to his grand plan.
Only then did we get a glimpse of the guy in those countless YouTube videos.
"We are not going to throw away our future to try to win the Stanley Cup next year,'' he said. "I can assure you of that. Are we going to try and win the Stanley Cup? Yes. Yes we are. Along with the 29 other teams. But we are not going to trade top young players for 29-, 30-year-olds to try to take a one-year run at the Cup.
"That is not going to happen.''
On Twitter: @samdonnellon
Columns: ph.ly/Donnellon