Back at the beginning of September, right before training camp began, we checked in with the Flyers’ fanbase to see how they were feeling about two key figures in the franchise: general manager Ron Hextall and head coach Dave Hakstol. We asked a simple question: do you approve of the job that Hextall and Hakstol are doing in their respective roles?
To say that, at the time, Hextall had the overwhelming support of this fanbase would have been accurate. A full 96 percent of the 2,637 voters in our poll said that they approved of Hextall’s performance heading into the season, with only two percent outright disapproving.
Reactions to the team’s coach, however, were more mixed: 22 percent of our voters approved of Hakstol’s work while 32 percent disapproved, but nearly half of our sample cast a vote of “unsure” as the former North Dakota bench boss entered his third NHL season.
Since then, we’ve seen the team go through rookie camp, training camp, the preseason, and five regular season games. And while the Flyers have won more games than they’ve lost so far in this young season, both the general manager and coach have received some scrutiny over the past month.
Hextall was forced to make a couple of tough decisions with his roster at the end of camp, and his choices in those decisions haven’t gone over well with everyone. The decision to demote Oskar Lindblom to the Phantoms was met with skepticism by some, while others thought that Samuel Morin and Travis Sanheim should have both made the Flyers. Fans have long been willing to be patient with Hextall as the team’s league-best group of prospects started to migrate to the NHL team, but it’s clear that patience is growing thin in some places.
As for Hakstol, many of the existing concerns fans may have had about him are still present now. Should Dale Weise really have a guaranteed top-9 spot to himself? Why is Andrew MacDonald on the top pair with Ivan Provorov? Has he handled the goalies well so far? And what’s the deal with Brandon Manning playing over Travis Sanheim?
Still, despite these concerns — all of which have some validity — the way the regular season has started is fairly encouraging. The Flyers have had a daunting opening schedule run; their season kicked off with a three-game California road trip, followed by games against the reigning Western Conference champion and then the reigning President’s Trophy winner. And yet despite that, the team has opened up at 3-2, and has rarely at any point during the first two weeks of the season found itself clearly outclassed by its opponent. It’s up to you to decide who you’d like to give the credit to for that — the GM for having the right players in place, the coach for using said players right, the players themselves for going out and doing the damn thing, or some combination of all of those.
With that, you tell us: when it comes to the job performance of the Flyers’ general manager and head coach, do you approve, disapprove, or are you unsure at this time? Cast your vote in the two polls below (before Tuesday night’s game against the Panthers!), and we’ll check back in again some time next month.
Do you approve of the job Ron Hextall is doing as Flyers general manager?
| Yes | 2184 |
| No | 64 |
| Unsure | 170 |
Do you approve of the job Dave Hakstol is doing as Flyers head coach?
| Yes | 889 |
| No | 663 |
| Unsure | 857 |
