Hakstol’s Challenge: Get Flyers back into playoff race

New Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol is presented with an instant challenge. The purpose behind his hiring for Ron Hextall was to be the coach that could instill a winning system and lead the Orange and Black back to the playoffs and beyond.

That challenge begins on Thursday night as the Flyers open their season in Tampa Bay against the Lightning.

If the preseason was any indicator, Hakstol’s system has not set in yet and won’t anytime soon, not with the way this group looked in the final week of the preseason.

That said, you wonder where Hakstol’s mentality is. He has been mild-mannered, almost getting his feet wet in the preseason himself before it all counts.

Thursday’s game is the beginning for the Flyers, a team that can absolutely not afford a slow start at any cost.

The thing we haven’t seen yet is Hakstol’s zero-tolerance policy for the best performance night in and night out. Looking back on the Flyers two games against New Jersey last week, it would seem likely that if there were actual points on the line, those performances would not have been tolerated.

Hakstol is also still learning and working with the chemistry and combinations. He has to take a team that in one year became motivated enough to make the playoffs and come within a game of advancing to the second round to missing the playoffs the next.

Hakstol’s challenge also hinges on the improvement of the Flyers as compared to other team. Even with many of the same faces returning, the Flyers subtle changes were improvements on paper. The problem is that while the Flyers were getting better by subtraction and small addition, many division and conference opponents were getting better by making additions of higher regard.

The Flyers had so much late-season success against teams in the playoff race already. Their struggle comes from playing down to opponents – though it is hard to play down to a team that is essentially at your level.

That motivation and energy in those games where the stakes were high and the opponent came with a high profile were the Flyers best. If Hakstol can get his system up and running, then the Flyers could be in good shape.

But a quick look at the roster indicates problems on the horizon. The Flyers just waived Andrew MacDonald, the defenseman with a six-year, $30 million contract. And obviously there are the mammoth contracts to Vincent Lecavalier and R.J. Umberger that are impossible to move.

Credit Hakstol in the early going. He's putting talent and performance above price tag. If the practice lines are any indication, Lecavalier, Luke Schenn and Sam Gagner could all be sitting out on Thursday as healthy scratches. The trio makes a combined $12.9 million.

Still, it is performance that serves as the ultimate evaluation and Hakstol seems to know that. The team will be judged not by individual numbers of star players like Claude Giroux, Jake Voracek and Steve Mason, but more on the standings. Hakstol, too, will be judged on how much of a playoff push and overall turnaround the team can make.

It is his first year, and there will almost definitely be little headaches that put the decision to hire Hakstol in question. But that shouldn't serve as a judgment point just yet. He may need two or three seasons to do what he has been hired to do.

Soon enough, the Flyers will be adding talent with a wave of prospects nearing the point where they will enter the NHL. With Hakstol’s system, the Flyers could be on the verge of making a return to the postseason, even if not this season.

But it would be nice to be competitive this season, and if Hakstol can keep this team competitive, it just might have the Flyers in a playoff race come March and April. It would also add another star to Hextall's portfolio of moves.

Kevin Durso is managing editor for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.