Official…Keith Jones named President of Hockey Operations

[LegionOfDoom]

8 minutes ago, CoachX said:

in order for him to have a true opportunity to succeed, the old guard should not be there

The Five headed Beast was put there in place, so that there will not be an old guard as Kings or Wisemen, but now more so as just PR, a figurative figure head of past lore, similar to what England has going on. 

They should have no teeth:

 

 

[CoachX]

15 minutes ago, GratefulFlyers said:

I don't care if they're both rookies but I do care that Jones has expressed admiration for Ristolainen. I heard the Philly radio guys this year a few times and they both adored Ristolainen too. So were they just giving us the standard PR line or do they truly believe he's a good player? I don't know but that's mostly what bothers me about the Jones hire. The "good old boys" club aspect too of course. It's just ridiculous that the Flyers keep hiring their own ex players.

If DB is a good GM, Jones' opinion of players should be minimal, and have little to no impact. And if Jones is a good POHO, he will stay in his lane. So Risto should be DB's issue, regardless of Jones' opinion. I'm with you on the Good Ol Boys (Bobby-Bunch) dynamic. It has to end or the team will never recover

[GratefulFlyers]

23 minutes ago, CoachX said:

And Briere doesnt have the experience to know the difference

 

maybe not but I think O'Connor overstates the concern about learning on the job - for Briere and for Jones. They're remaking the roster right? So they need to draft players and add/subtract from who they have. This isn't rocket science. They both have been around the NHL for a long time; they know who's who. The main thing for me is who they like and if they like Ristolainen ... we're in trouble.

[pilldoc]

https://theathletic.com/4510882/2023/05/11/flyers-keith-jones-daniel-briere/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983

 

1. Formally laying out the GM/PoHO distinction

Jones — as president of hockey operations — will “lead the strategic direction for all aspects of the hockey operations department while collaborating on business goals.”

Briere’s duties as GM. “Responsible for all hockey decisions as it pertains to signings, trades and draft picks as well as overseeing scouting, player development, roster construction” — yup, that’s more like it.

 

It’s not that Jones will lack any say in hockey affairs. Jones is a hockey lifer and a regarded as an expert on the game by those throughout the industry. The Flyers wouldn’t hire him and then shoehorn him into a PR-only job; they want Briere to use Jones as a sounding board and formal adviser. He’ll very much be in the room, providing his input.

 

But it’s Briere who will be running the show, Briere who will be making the final call on all hockey-related decisions, and Briere who will be tasked with returning the Flyers to prominence.

 

2. The “New Era of Orange”

Hilferty echoed the “new era” language in the news release announcing the new leadership structure. In fact, it was the very first sentence of his statement.

 

“Today marks a new era for the Philadelphia Flyers,” Hilferty vowed.

 

And it is “new,” in the sense that Briere has never been Flyers GM before and Jones has never been in the Flyers’ front office (or any NHL front office) either. The Flyers did restructure their organization, with the goal of making it more unified, especially in terms of internal communication. They also believe they’ve made it more effective in terms of building a hockey team — and their success in that area will ultimately decide whether it truly is the dawn of a “new era of orange” or just an extension of the malaise of the past decade.

 

3. Jones and the culture

“When you don the Orange and Black, you’re held to a specific set of standards, and you’re expected to show up and work your ass off. Every. Single. Day. It’s about doing things the right way. No excuses. No shortcuts,” the above tweet reads.

 

You have to wonder how they went about getting that brief bit of profanity approved by corporate communications.

 

This can certainly be said for Jones: if it’s a priority for the Flyers to remain The Flyers in terms of culture-building and style of play, he’ll certainly help to foster it. We’re talking about one of the most well-liked people in the industry, so it won’t be difficult for him to foster a sense of community within the organization. And dating back to last September, Jones was very much on board with the idea that the Flyers were in desperate need first and foremost of a reinfusion of competitiveness.

 

If anything else, Jones cares about the Flyers and what they mean to fans. Will that emotional investment help him and the rest of the new leadership great build a contending hockey team in the modern NHL? We’ll see.

 

4. Why Jones?

But Hilferty’s comments in the release at least shed some light on their thinking.

“It was critical to find someone who would complement Coach Tortorella and Danny in their roles while overseeing the strategic direction of the team,” Hilferty began. “As a former player whose career concluded in Philadelphia, ‘Jonesy’ understands the value of creating chemistry and enabling leadership within a team. He has extensive experience analyzing and evaluating talent, and knows first-hand how important collaboration is on and off ice – a key factor for us moving forward.”

 

5. Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration

Hilferty loves collaboration. He made that abundantly clear in our interview in early April, dropping the word or a derivative of the word eight separate times over the course of a little over 30 minutes.

 

There were four more references to it in Thursday’s news release. In other words, Hilferty’s fingerprints were all over it.

“Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to put together collaborative teams that have achieved great things,” Hilferty noted. “This is about more than simply hiring a President of Hockey Operations and General Manager. We are thoughtfully constructing a leadership team. Our top priority was to find leaders who bring unique skill sets, experience and temperament to maximize the group’s potential. With this new Flyers leadership in place, we are committed to a collaborative approach on and off the ice.”

Hilferty believes that his new leadership group possesses the level of collaboration that resulted in success in his past ventures. And the news release also made it clear that while hockey decisions will largely be made via the “triumvirate of leadership,” the full group isn’t just three people.

[radoran]

3 minutes ago, GratefulFlyers said:

if they like Ristolainen ... we're in trouble.

 

The thing to remember about the Flyers' hockey commentators on television is that they are paid by the team and do toe the team's line.

 

The organization* invested a lot in Ristolainen. They don't want to look like idiots*. They will tell the announce crew to find anything positive they can say about the player.

 

Then the viewers have something positive to say as well. Then the people who made the (ridiculously terrible) decision don't look quite as bad.

 

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

 

If you go back, you will hear the announcers waxing rhapsodic about Andrew MacDonald.

 

The question, again, is not what Danny Boy & Jonesy say or how they say it, it's what they do and how they do it.

 

And we already know what happened to the last guy that shut the senior hockey advisors out of decision making.

 

The main benefit there is that they are Hilferty's hires and Hilferty may not have the same devotion to the SHAs that Scott did.

 

Again, time will tell.

 

We'll see...

[pilldoc]

Part 2

 

6. Not three, but five

Both in the formal news release and Hilferty’s email letter sent out to Inside Edge season ticket holders, Hilferty outlined the primary leadership core as he envisioned it. And it wasn’t just Briere, Jones and Tortorella.

“I have full confidence that both Keith and Danny – together with Coach Tortorella, Valerie and me – are the right leadership team to guide the Philadelphia Flyers. We are unanimously committed to rebuilding and sustaining a winning culture – and doing it the right way,” he said.

 

So Hilferty and Camillo will very much be in the leadership mix as well, with Jones serving as the conduit between the hockey operations side (Briere and Torts) and those more focused on the business elements of the team (Hilferty and Camillo). There’s your five-person leadership group.

 

7. Tortorella isn’t going anywhere

Oh, and if there were any lingering questions about whether the new GM and president of hockey operations would be considering a coaching change? Yeah, that’s not happening.

 

“Entering his second season, Head Coach John Tortorella has set the tone for what is expected from our players,” Hilferty noted in his statement. “Torts has extensive experience behind the bench with a proven track record of success, which includes a Stanley Cup Championship. Having a coach of his caliber already in place is a tremendous advantage.”

 

Hilferty has been speaking since April as if he views Tortorella very much as part of the solution in Philadelphia. My guess is that the organization’s trust in Tortorella played a role in deciding on this structure — after all, a GM from the outside likely would be interested in hiring a new coach, as would a PoHO with significant team-building powers. In this leadership structure, however, Tortorella has an existing, positive relationship with the incoming general manager, and the president of hockey operations isn’t the type who will necessarily be trying to put his stamp on the organization from a personnel standpoint in the way a true outsider might.

 

That’s not to say that the presence of Tortorella is why the Flyers hired Briere and Jones. But it’s easy to see how a more traditional structure may have been an uncomfortable fit if ownership viewed Tortorella as an essential piece.

8. Rebuild still the plan

The Flyers might have a new leadership group now with Briere officially named GM and Jones added to the mix. But the plan to rebuild remains, based on Thursday’s releases.

 

“All of us are completely committed to rebuilding and restoring our winning tradition – and doing it the right way,” Hilferty wrote.

And then, when introducing Briere as the new GM, he used the prospect of the looming rebuild to justify the hire.

 

“Danny is enthusiastic about rebuilding the franchise he knows so well, having spent eight seasons in our front office and six seasons as a player,” he continued.

 

So expect the Flyers to continue to embark on the overarching plan that was articulated in March. Yes, the Flyers are still going to rebuild.

9. Experience?

There was one particular sentence in the news release from Hilferty that was difficult to swallow, given the eventual result of the hiring process for GM and PoHO.

 

“The search process that we just completed was detailed and exhaustive, and our top focus was to find leaders with complimentary skill sets, experience, and temperament to begin a new, winning era for this proud franchise,” he wrote.

 

Experience, in this case, apparently meant hiring one person with minimal NHL front-office leadership experience, and another with none. And the “detailed and exhaustive” search process equalled promoting a special assistant from within and hiring the team’s color commentator. The search may have truly been exhaustive, but the actual hires could have been made without leaving the Wells Fargo Center on a normal Flyers game day.

10. Darker orange

Buried in the excitement of Thursday’s announcement was another reveal, which played to their tagline of choice: A new era of orange. As rumored, it sure looks like the Flyers will be tweaking their color scheme in a move back to the darker, more burnt orange of the past. The team’s images on social media appear to have been adjusted to account for the change in shade — which will always certainly be reflected in their jerseys come September.

 

At the very least, it will be a new era in that regard.

[LegionOfDoom]

I think Ristolainen unfortunately brings the fans "perceived baggage" of what is perceived as "a first round pick, Ghost and Salary" : had he of been Sam Morin as a Flyers pick that is/was developing from our farm, people would be giving him his flowers at the end of the season for his vast improvement from Buffalo.

He was a premium, that's for sure and was a Sabre signing and a Fletcher Fleece.

The drapes don't match the carpet. If you divorce the two, then you can see that under the right tutelage Risto will be better at draping the defensive coverage and carpet out a pass to a exiting forward to begin a rush going the other way.

[radoran]

2 minutes ago, pilldoc said:

Hilferty echoed the “new era” language in the news release announcing the new leadership structure. In fact, it was the very first sentence of his statement.

 

OK, well, they've got a slogan so we've got that going for us. #bringittobroad

 

[JR Ewing]

6 minutes ago, GratefulFlyers said:

 

maybe not but I think O'Connor overstates the concern about learning on the job - for Briere and for Jones. They're remaking the roster right? So they need to draft players and add/subtract from who they have. This isn't rocket science. They both have been around the NHL for a long time; they know who's who. The main thing for me is who they like and if they like Ristolainen ... we're in trouble.

 

I don't know... I watched the Oilers run through an entire group of alumni players brought as management rookies to rebuild the club. The Sabres are 12 years into bringing in rookie after rookie. To the extent that nobody expects a team of full of rookie/inexperienced players to win the Stanley Cup, it seems like a bet against the house to expect strong results from rookie managers.

 

I would love to see the Flyers stick it in everybody's face, but I don't think they're setting themselves up for success with this.

 

[JR Ewing]

4 minutes ago, LegionOfDoom said:

I think Ristolainen unfortunately brings the fans "perceived baggage" of what is perceived as "a first round pick, Ghost and Salary" : had he of been Sam Morin as a Flyers pick that is/was developing from our farm, people would be giving him his flowers at the end of the season for his vast improvement from Buffalo.

He was a premium, that's for sure and was a Sabre signing and a Fletcher Fleece.

The drapes don't match the carpet. If you divorce the two, then you can see that under the right tutelage Risto will be better at draping the defensive coverage and carpet out a pass to a exiting forward to begin a rush going the other way.

 

No. Ristolainen was terrible at controlled zone exits in Buffalo and remains so in Philly. He's a strong puck retriever, but mostly relies on flipping the puck to centre or the good ol' off-the-glass-and-out to clear trouble. This is who he is, regardless of the perception people have of him due to the cost of acquisition.

[OccamsRazor]

7 minutes ago, radoran said:

The organization* invested a lot in Ristolainen. They don't want to look like idiots*. They will tell the announce crew to find anything positive they can say about the player.

 

I was going to link the Keith Jones hot mic conversation and well you can't find it. Don't know if you remember it but yeah now that he is where he is you can't find it anywhere.

 

Here is the only remnant i could find of it...

 

https://www.sportstalkphilly.com/2019/01/jim-jackson-keith-jones-caught-with-hot-mic-on-flyers-broadcast.html

 

...but if you click on the twitter link it has been deleted...so evidence erased of him being critical of the players.

 

I'm good with him doing it he is going to have to be to sort this fiasco out...

[radoran]

1 minute ago, JR Ewing said:

 

No. Ristolainen was terrible at controlled zone exits in Buffalo and remains so in Philly. He's a strong puck retriever, but mostly relies on flipping the puck to centre or the good ol' off-the-glass-and-out to clear trouble. This is who he is, regardless of the perception people have of him due to the cost of acquisition.

 

People do look back at his four consecutive 40 point seasons early in his career and if you want him to be your #1 defenceman on the PP and a top pair against other teams, he can produce that for you.

 

Much like Tony DeAngelo.

 

You won't win very many games, and the Sabres certainly didn't with him in that position.

 

He was -96 while producing those 40 point seasons. His minus went down because they drafted Oh My Dahlin who is an actual, competent, offensive defenceman despite being Swedish.

[CoachX]

I question Jones' experience/qualifications to do the job. I question the Flyers constant commitment to hiring ex-players to run the team. Both scare the outta me.

 

But....I don't question KJ's love for the city and franchise. He is widely admired in the hockey world for his personality and intelligence. He could have gone anywhere. But he stayed with Philly. That means something. And although it could be argued that he is the next evolution of the bobby-bunch, there might be another way to think about it

 

KJ has watched this team get decimated. Although an ex-flyer, his only real connection to the previous era was the Lindros fiasco. He has commented openly things that many of us feel. So he might be empathetic, and motivated to right the ship. With the new guy running the show, the Bobby-bunch, might be nothing more than figure heads with no real impact

[radoran]

3 minutes ago, CoachX said:

the Bobby-bunch,

 

What are the foundations of a successful hockey franchise?

 

 

[LegionOfDoom]

5 minutes ago, JR Ewing said:

 

No. Ristolainen was terrible at controlled zone exits in Buffalo and remains so in Philly. He's a strong puck retriever, but mostly relies on flipping the puck to centre or the good ol' off-the-glass-and-out to clear trouble. This is who he is, regardless of the perception people have of him due to the cost of acquisition.

He wasn't great in Buffalo and all the years of misappropriation, can't be fixed in one season.

I still hold out hope that he will not grenade pucks out and have seen a vast improvement to his game(grant it, I didn't watch all the games he played to make a peer review case for him)

but I have heard others from other walks of lines mention also what I saw and that is a step forward in a positive step. Unfortunately at the cost of his physicality but I hold out that once, he can distinguish when to lay a hard hit and when to make the safer defensive play and not take yourself out of your position, will come, with having a defensive partner that can complement his style.

We payed a premium for him and would focus on the fact that we can't just throw away something for nothing, he proved to be serviceable this year with improvements and with a year under Torts already, I am interested how he enters training camp next season with the schematics already drawn up in place to move forward in improving his game.

If he's grenade-ing pucks out the halfwalls and causing delay of games, then maybe they Robert Hagg his ass back to oz.

[LegionOfDoom]

I talked about the Five Headed Monster earlier and what I thought it entails and Pilldoc put the proof in the pudding in writing/posting what the Flyers decision to go the way they did.

 

This is a new era of "5 years away"

 

[LegionOfDoom]

One thing I can say, that I can't say with Fletcher is.... Danny(with a little Mr. Jones) might be able to wiggle out a better draft pick position(move up) this upcoming draft then where we are at 7th and/or get back a 2nd round pick in this years draft.

[CoachX]

4 minutes ago, LegionOfDoom said:

One thing I can say, that I can't say with Fletcher is.... Danny(with a little Mr. Jones) might be able to wiggle out a better draft pick position(move up) this upcoming draft then where we are at 7th and/or get back a 2nd round pick in this years draft.

how do you see this happening?

[LegionOfDoom]

I heard some rumors, unofficially from some sources.

 

How I think they might do it, though, is by packaging players and our 1st round pick and extra picks to maybe move up two spots, though the odds are stacked against them(A 3 team deal). This is were Jones relationship/connections will come to the foray. That sneaky devil....you.

 

[LegionOfDoom]

The one thing I can also for a certain,say is this, that the era of ill will towards the Flyers of past GM'smanship is gone, we were handed a new sleight with the league and there will be an openness to hearing out our leadership in a trifecta of  "trades, targets and transplanting" of players that need a new start somewhere else.

[LegionOfDoom]

There is allot to digest, with all that has transpired in these past few days, and the fanbase needs to step back and not focus soo much on what is in front of their nose' but look at the breathscape of how this organization will circulate from here on out.

[LegionOfDoom]

We will be a more frugal trade partner from here on out. 

[LegionOfDoom]

Second round picks will come back into style.

[OccamsRazor]

This right here. It's why he got the job.

 

 

[CoachX]

5 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

This right here. It's why he got the job.

 

 

uh oh