One day after the Flyers players cleaned out their lockers for the offseason, the Flyers brass — president Paul Holmgren, general manager Ron Hextall and head coach Dave Hakstol — addressed the media.
Several topics were discussed, the most important among them the progress of the team and the amount of work left for them to become a contender among the rest of the league.
"We need to get better," Hextall said. "We made the playoffs and lost in the first round. We're not going to sit around all summer here and rest on making the playoffs and losing to Washington in six games. We need to get better. That's my job. It's also every player's job to make himself better this year, to contribute to the team and make us a better team. It's also the coach's responsibility, too, to look at what we did right and what we did wrong and certainly my responsibility to do what I can to our team to make it better."
"I think we made some progress this year. I think as a team we still have a lot of work to do," Hakstol said. "For us, one of the bigger strides we made, I feel like we got to the point where we were an everyday team. That was a good step for us. We showed up, we worked and concentrated real well in practice, every game day. If I'm going to sum up the progress we made this year, that's one of the areas where we made progress."
Holmgren kept his comments geared toward the management side of things, as the Flyers move on after the passing of Ed Snider.
"I still look at my phone thinking he's going to call," Holmgren said. "It's been different and I'm sure it will continue to be different for a little while. I spent more time talking to him in the role I am now than I did when I was GM."
Holmgren said hockey decisions would be made by himself and Hextall. If additional management needs to step in, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and Comcast Spectacor president and CEO Dave Scott will be involved.
Holmgren established that even though Snider is no longer here physically, his spirit will remain and the organization will represent the culture is has had for decades.
"Not at all. I think it's going to be great moving forward. We're trying to win. With Ron's plans, I don't want to say we're ahead or where we thought we'd to be, but we're making strides. And I expect our team to take more strides next year."
Hextall did not address injuries as previously expected, saying that list had not been compiled yet. He did start to elaborate on offseason plans.
One move that seems destined to happen is a new, long-term deal for Brayden Schenn. Schenn was suspended for three games at the start of the 2016-17 season on Tuesday, which Hextall disagreed with.
"I've got a lot of things on my to-do list. I'd venture a guess that it's not going to be the first thing that we get done, but in the end, we'll get it done," Hextall said. "There's a lot of factors. I have no idea right now where that's headed. I can't say we'll sign Brayden to a long-term deal. I would certainly be open to it.
"I was very disappointed and we will consider the appeal process. We haven't dug into it hard enough yet, but we'll certainly consider it."
Hextall also expressed interest in re-signing Ryan White and Nick Cousins and also a potential long-term deal for Radko Gudas.
"The first thing you have to look at is where we can get better from within," Hextall said. "We'll certainly look at the free agent market and the trade market. If something makes sense, we'll do it."
The Flyers GM added that he would like to keep both Michal Neuvirth and Steve Mason as the team's goaltenders and won't be actively looking for a trade, but won't rule one out either. In addition, Hextall sounded less likely to sign Sam Gagner to a new deal and ruled out re-signing Evgeny Medvedev.
Medvedev was at the center of an interesting story. The defenseman was reportedly arrested for suspicion of DUI in Lower Moreland on Tuesday.
Another expected move for the Flyers is a buyout of forward R.J. Umberger, who said in his exit interview Tuesday that he was personally expecting it.
A new season in 2016-17 also presents a new chance for the youth of the team and the prospects that have generated so much noise to crack the NHL lineup. Now that the team in its current state has proven to be playoff worthy, Hextall isn't resting on just getting into the playoffs and unless one of the prospects is ready and can help improve the team's chances of performing better, nothing will change with their progress.
Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny are two prospects expected to garner a lot of attention come training camp and the preseason, but nothing is guaranteed.
"We're not going to change philosophically in terms of young players have got to come in and be better than someone else who's here," Hextall said. "If that happens, we proved last year that we'll make room on our roster for a young player that proved he's ready to play at this level and make our team better. I'm not putting a young player on the team so we can say we're a young team. They're going to come in here and earn a spot."
Hextall remained true to his plan. The Flyers did make the playoffs and that was certainly an added bonus to be a "bubble playoff team" as Hextall called it. But that's not good enough for Hextall, who expects more growth from this season to next and is more focused on winning games over the course of the next several seasons, instead of next season alone.
"My job is to not win every game. Hak's job is to win every game. My job is to watch over and make sure we're okay today but also what we're building towards remains the same," Hextall said. "I'm not an impatient guy by nature. The whole thing that we started to build two years ago, our vision's the same and we're on the path and we're a lot closer than we were two years ago."
For Hakstol, one of the challenges the Flyers will face, regardless as to who is on the roster, is starting the season off strong. The Flyers started October with a 4-2-1 record before slipping to 5-8-3 after 16 games. Another year, another slow start. Hakstol said the Flyers can't get caught up in their run to the playoffs over the last months of the regular season when next season arrives.
"I think we've got a good foundation to work off of, but we're going to have to be very diligent in the work that we do and we're going to have to be very hungry to get off to a good start," Hakstol said. "We know and understand how we want to do things. We're going to evaluate things here over the summer and look at things systematically and look at areas we may want to change, tweak, improve. It's not like you come back and you just pick up where you left off. It's a new beginning to a new season and I think we have to treat it as such."
Kevin Durso is managing editor for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.
