rickmac19

I think Mr. Snider's comments about Hextall tell us what we need to know. It sounds like Hextall outworks anyone Snider has seen in his front office, fiendishly so. You can rest confidently that Hextall looked at this thing frontwards and backwards, upside down and sideways. I think he made a great decision. 

As Snider alluded to, Hextall could have chased a re-tread, but they had all been fired for some reason. Not the best logic, as I don't know why the Bruins cleaned out Julien and the Sharks may find out that McClellan should have stayed while others went. But all that to say, any of those had as much of a chance to work out or fail as Hakstol, really. And I don't think that anyone could argue that Hakstol certainly "fits" better than anyone available. Hextall shot the pink elephant in the room and said, "Yeah, he has no experience, but he'll get some." Ten games into the playoffs (if the Flyers wade that far in), nobody's a rookie anyway.  

Would we fans rather the team backed up the armored truck for Babcock? Mikey, who recently had a thing for throwing his own guys under the bus on his own team? The Flyers have problems--one starts with a "40" and he makes about 100,000 times that in salary. Overpaid and underproducing defensemen signed until your kid finishes college. No backup goaltender, and some enigmatic "core" players who seem like they have more potential than they show. Plus, players coming up who might help but log-jammed off the roster because of salary issues. What would Babcock make of all of this? Would he make it all work? Sacrifice the future for the now? Sacrifice the now for the future? I don't know, but I remain skeptical that if the Flyers even convinced him to come to Philadelphia, how he would have fared and who would receive blame for any failure.

I think Hextall made an excellent choice. I think he will position the club for a shot at the Cup in a five-year window starting in a couple of years. By the way, he's not trying to undo everything Holmgren did--it just looks that way! Ha!