When a professional team acquires a player, fans are always curious to see what the new arrival can do for the team. They want to know how much of a help his skill set can be to the lineup, and if he does well enough, he could be entrenched as an immediate fan-favorite.
This is especially true when a team unloads not just one, but two much-maligned players. It's also true when the player is a 23-year-old talent with a high ceiling, and never quite got the opportunity to establish himself at the NHL level.
When Ron Hextall worked his magic yet again and offloaded Luke Schenn and Vincent Lecavalier to the Los Angeles Kings for Jordan Weal and a third-round pick, the jury was still out on Weal. Despite a prolific career with the American League's Manchester Monarchs (where Weal scored 58 goals and 173 points in 221 games over parts of five seasons), Weal's game never quite translated to the NHL.
Weal spent much of this season as a healthy scratch for the Kings. He cracked their lineup for just 10 games this season, recording no points, an even rating and two penalty minutes. The Kings are still in win-now mode, and they did not see Weal as a factor for another Stanley Cup run come springtime.
Since the Jan. 6 trade, Weal has not found his way into the lineup for the five games that the Orange and Black played. It's not so much a reflection on Weal, but considering how strongly the Flyers have been playing in the month of January, Dave Hakstol has expressed a reluctance to change the lineup and add Weal.
In seven games this month, the Flyers are 5-1-1. That stretch has seen them reel off a season-long four-game winning streak, and they take a six-game points streak into Tuesday's home matchup against Toronto. They've averaged roughly 2.89 goals per game in that stretch (well above their low 2.23 mark this season) and they continue to flirt with the possibility of a wild-card playoff spot.
As the old adage goes, if it's not broken, don't fix it. It makes perfect sense for Hakstol to apply that logic to the players that he ices on a nightly basis.
Part of the reason why Weal never got much of a shake with the win-now Kings was the talent they possess. Forwards such as Dustin Brown, Jeff Carter, Anze Kopitar and Marian Gaborik were crucial to recent Stanley Cup success, and the addition of Milan Lucic over the offseason added some size to their forward crop. Subsequently, it's not often that players from the Kings' farm were able to crack the lineup — though players such as Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson have proven themselves as exceptions.
Weal's size — 5-foot-10 and 179 pounds — didn't help him in LA either. Coach Darryl Sutter's two-way, defensive-minded style calls for bigger and stronger players, which doesn't exactly befit Weal.
There's no doubt that Hextall sees something in Weal that could benefit the Flyers. Hextall was part of the contingent that drafted Weal back in the third round of the 2010 Draft, and he oversaw the Monarchs teams that Weal played on up until he joined the Flyers' front office in 2013. Hextall sees Weal as more than a marginal player at the NHL level, and feels that his high offensive level will be able to translate to The Show.
At some point, Weal will figure his way into the Flyers' lineup. But until then, it's worth seeing how much longer the Orange and Black can keep up this stretch of strong play.
Rob Riches is a contributor to Flyerdelphia and Sports Talk Philly. Follow him on Twitter @Riches61
