Reviews from the latest Flyers Legend the Saga in the reality show season

How is this in a week? The Flyers kicked in Anaheim last Tuesday without their captain and top pair defender on the COVID list, along with their other top center back and other top pair defender because of injuries in the face of the Ducks and received a 4-1 defeat.

Two nights later, the Flyers had the same brief roster and added a top six forwards and four defenders to the COVID roster. They faced the Pittsburgh Penguins, at the time with a convincing nine-game winning and losing streak. It also happened to be on the eve of their late founder’s birthday. There has been a lot of mention of such an event, even hours after his own foundation dedicated to using hockey to promote education and empowerment of under-resourced youth, tweeted their own tribute.

Last Saturday, the same serving team hit the ice rink in front of a half-capacity crowd at Wells Fargo, who were so much more interested in the soccer game that was going on across the street, that An encounter with the Eagles resulted in the loudest cheers of the night. It’s out of the ice. On the ice, the team took a 2-0 lead in the third inning, then blew up in extra time with their second hat-trick in five days, resulting in a fifth straight loss.

Then came this Tuesday, on a day that the Flyers were suddenly off due to the postponement of their game against Carolina. Not only have their COVID issues continued, but the franchise’s all-time legendary player has had some scathing comments about a former GM and the state of the franchise.

Bobby Clarke was on the “Cam and Strick Podcast,” co-hosted by the NHL veteran Orange Janssen and internal NHL Andy Strickland, on Tuesday and shed light on the decisions made under the former GM Ron Hextall, most notably the 2017 NHL Draft which saw the Flyers shortlisted for the second overall selection.

Here’s Clarke on Hextall’s tenure, his decision to fire him as GM in 2018, and the draft decision Nolan Patrick in 2017.

“It was. When Paul Holmgren Hiring him, I think it was the best decision he could make. When Hexy arrived, we were still friends, but he alienated everyone immediately. You close the door, you lock the door, you are the boss. No one else is a part of it.

“We get the second pick in [2017 NHL Draft] and we ended up sketching Nolan Patrick. None of our scouts wanted Nolan Patrick. I don’t know where Patrick was supposed to go after his performance at Brandon. He’s a pretty good player. But they want [Cale] Makar. Of course, he went next. He’s a superstar now and Patrick hasn’t played… but Hextall made that choice on his own, and there are other picks that were made in our draft that we’re paying for. We had two or three picks in the first round that was never going to happen. That’s why we’re having a hard time. Hexy made some big mistakes.

“And more than that, just alienating people. He never included anyone. He made himself bigger than the team. That’s something I never thought of with Hexy because he’s such a player on that team. Even former students were kept out of the changing rooms and belongings. Those things don’t work. They are counterproductive. We are in the back right now. We have a long way to go to catch up. The pay cap affects everyone, but everyone works on it. We have to get back in the middle of the pack and start working our way up. “

Everything continues when Brayden Schenn transaction from the same bill of exchange issued. More content by Clarke:

“It was just as bad. No one knows that. Hexy did it herself. All of our scouts – that’s in draft – our scouts were made at Hexy to do just that, trading Schenn. And so are we – I’m talking too much – but we also have a chance to [Ryan] O’Reilly from Buffalo. We didn’t, obviously it was the manager’s decision, but it was another decision that the scouts weren’t consulted with. I sat at a table three chairs away from him as he traded Schenn – no clue. ”

Full podcast here

It’s no secret that there’s always been some disagreement with how Flyers use the second overall pick, but this takes it to the next level. The most legendary Flyers player and a famous general manager of the team basically threw Hextall under the bus. It’s something that simply doesn’t happen in the typical family atmosphere that has always been with Flyers.

We can debate the 2017 NHL Draft until we feel green. Honestly, hindsight is 20-20 and decided to choose Patrick over Makar or even Miro Heiskanen – who actually finished third with the pick after Patrick – or Elias Pettersson, who finished 5th overall behind Makar, is a major shortcoming in the Flyers’ recent history.

The same can be said of any draft pick, but it’s interesting to hear Clarke mention that “two or three picks in the first leg will never play”. Since Hextall’s GM tenure, there have been plenty of first-round picks for NHL-level talent. Travis Sanheim in 2014, Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny in 2015, Joel Farabee in 2018, even Patrick in 2017 still counts, as Patrick has had over 200 NHL games despite the injury and Clarke’s comments.

But in 2016, the Flyers traded back in the first round of the NHL Draft and picked out 22nd overall. They took German Rubtsov, who has played in just four NHL games since then. Morgan Frost, made with the 27th overall pick in 2017 with one of the picks going to Schenn, only 38 games with NHL experience, dealing with his own injuries over the years. Jay O’Brien was chosen 19th overall in 2018, just five picks behind Farabee. He has essentially become a forgotten part of the prospect group, still in the university ranks.

The 2018 NHL Draft was Hextall’s final exam as the GM Flyers. As of the 2015 Draft, only two players Hextall drafted had played at least 100 games at NHL level – Patrick and Carter Hart.

It’s also no secret that as Hextall holds the GM post, there’s a clear hierarchy in how things are handled, especially among players and alumni. Crossing Broad’s Anthony SanFilippo Dive Deep about the micromanagement nature of Hextall back when he was fired in 2018, detailing everything from the fact that alumni were not allowed to use the locker room to an alumni game – which Clarke has also covered on the podcast – to the control of diets, equipment and essentially growing spies in the dressing room and equipment to make sure all of this is followed.

So from this, it doesn’t look like some of this detail is news. This has been around for a while, and now only a franchise legend has actually commented on any of it publicly. That said, it’s another indictment of the state of this once great franchise.

On the ice, the Flyers are playing with countless cases of injuries and COVID, some players are only partially well, and it shows in the results. You might point to the 4-1 defeat that closed the West Coast trip 1-2-1, the heavy 6-2 defeat to the Penguins, or the 3-2 extra-time loss to San Jose that most cities have. probably don’t know yet. know what happened when the Flyers went back into free fall mode again. A 10-game losing streak followed by a 7-point streak has turned into another 5-game losing streak and is counting on.

But it’s not just about wins and losses and ice performances. Think of all the mistakes the organization has made, essentially, just in the last month.

In the midst of the aforementioned 10-game losing streak, the Flyers made another coach change. Mike Yeo, taking on a temporary role for Alain Vigneault, becoming the team’s sixth head coach since the start of the 2013-14 season.

On the same day Vigneault was fired, the team was participating in the Colorado Avalanche and a police dog frees itself on the central ice icon, a moment is fully captured and goes viral.

On a 10-game losing streak, fans took to Twitter and started a movement, changing their profile picture to a unique image of a fan with a bag on his head.

With the team eventually having a few more positive results on the ice, the positives also began to pile up as another COVID surge hit the NHL. The season is paused for a week. The Flyers have not played for 11 days. When they returned, they continued their recent futile time by negligently admitting it Ed Sniderbirthday of, attract reaction from before player and Snider’s Daughter, and then Clarke’s comment on this podcast appeared.

It even told to listen to Clarke’s voice. First a player, then a member of the office, franchise leader in multiple categories, the passion for the game runs in his blood and you can hear it. . But you can also hear a frustrated, even angry tone in his voice. You hear the exasperation – the “I’m taking too much” line really says it all – as he recounts moments from the most recent years of Flyers history.

It has reached a new level for Flyers. This is essentially a great, big reality show. Ice games are only one part of the equation, and at this point, things that happen on ice are making the bigger headlines.

Kevin Durso is a Flyers insider for 97.3 ESPN and Flyers editor for SportsTalkPhilly.com. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.

Philadelphia Flyers uniforms through the years