After a week that saw the Flyers trailing 4-0 after the first period twice in three games, many were wondering if this was finally the time that a move was going to be made — a trade, a coach firing, or something else along those lines to shake things up. And after a Sunday that came and went without any of that, it looked like the status quo was going to remain in place at least through tomorrow’s game.
We were a day late, but the change was bigger than what almost anyone was expecting.
The Flyers announced on Monday morning that general manager Ron Hextall, who joined the team in the summer of 2013 and became general manager in May of 2014, has been relieved of his duties with the team. The team announced that Paul Holmgren, team president and of course the general manager that Hextall took over for in 2014, will head up the search for a replacement.
The team’s full statement on the firing, courtesy of Holmgren, is as follows:
“The Flyers organization has decided to relieve Ron Hextall of his duties as Executive Vice President and General Manager. We thank Ron for his many significant contributions, but it has become clear that we no longer share the same philosophical approach concerning the direction of the team. In light of these differences, we feel it’s in the organization’s best interests to make a change, effective immediately. I have already begun a process to identify and select our next General Manager, which we hope to complete as soon as possible.”
Holmgren and Comcast Spectacor Chairman and CEO Dave Scott will be available to the media at 11:00 am on Tuesday, November 27. There will be no further comment on this matter until that time.
We’ll learn more tomorrow morning, and who knows? We may even have more news by then:
Hmmm. Hak not on ice with players.
— Sam Carchidi (@BroadStBull) November 26, 2018
We’ll have more thoughts on this — and on Hextall’s tenure as GM of the Flyers — in the near future, but this statement, simply, reads as one from a front office that felt that something had to be done, dealing with a general manager who simply refused to do that something. We may not know what the specifics are — did Hextall refuse to fire Dave Hakstol, the one head coach he’d ever hired? Was there a player move potentially out there that Hextall didn’t pursue aggressively enough? Perhaps we’ll find out more tomorrow.
Wow.
