Flyers general manager Ron Hextall spoke to the media on Thursday regarding his outlook on the 2018 NHL Draft. As always, the GM was very guarded about what he'd reveal, but he did allow for a description of his general preferences -- building through the middle with a general preference for centers (including ones who switch to wing as pros) and defensemen near the top of the Draft. He also said that he does not plan on making any long-term, ultra-high cap hit UFA signings come July, although the team currently has the cap space to do so.
A five-point assessment of Hextall's key themes will be published on Friday on the Flyers official website. For those who prefer the full, unedited transcript of Hextall's comments, it follows below courtesy of the Flyers.
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Ron, I think everybody’s pretty clear the number one guy in the draft is [Rasmus] Dahlin. When you take a look at the other prospects what is that next range, after number one, number two through what?
Everybody’s views are different, I don’t want to disclose too much here for obvious reasons, but I think there’s a good group after that. Some people probably view it as there’s eight or ten really good players that should go off the board in some semblance of that order. I think there’s a point in this draft where a certain pick might not be different from twenty picks back. So, it’s probably a fairly typical draft. Everybody views things different and certainly there’s always guys who jump in before we all think they’re going to.
Ron, are you leaning towards keeping your picks or are you listening to teams moving up?
I’ll be perfectly forthright. I wouldn’t tell you a lot of things just for obvious reasons, but I anticipate making our picks. Certainly we would move up if the right deal were there and we’d look at moving back if the right deal were there too. It’s really hard to project or predict, I don’t even know in my own mind what might come our way, but I know something will at some point. We’re fairly prepared at this point. We’ll go down to Dallas Sunday and meet Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to clean it up. We got a pretty good grip right now on where we’re at and who we think will fall in our spots.
How big is that group, let’s start with number 14 because you know there will be X number of guys for where you are in the draft. When you look at how you said, the guy you get could be anywhere from 20 spots from the guy you want, when you look at 14 how many guys do you see in that prospective group that could be there for you? More so than an average year?
Probably about average, some are in the four/five range but again, you don’t know how many guys are going to jump ahead. It might be more than that, it might go exactly like we think and it might be less than that.
Do drafts move in the sense that like two years ago, you guys were all looking at this year and saying it’s going to be a such and such draft, then when it gets to that point, does it move one way or the other?
Well, yeah. Every year our scouts tell us that next year is a great draft. You’ll get the next year, yeah, it’s an average draft. Yeah, you have to be careful too much projecting next year. Next year does look good right now, all kidding aside. But that’s fairly typical for right now, all of a sudden, next year you start watching those guys really close. They’re not watching them this year, they’re seeing them but they’re not watching them. There’s a big difference.
That’s where I’m going with that. Was this average looking a year ago, two years ago? The meter hasn’t moved?
I think it’s fairly close, maybe a little better than what people thought a year ago. It’s not a bad draft, it’s a good draft. We’ll know in three, four, five or six years if it’s really better than we all thought. If it’s better than average. Right now, I think it’s better than average.
Is there a position of strength when you look at the guys that could be available for you? Is it deep in forwards, deep defenseman, wingers?
It’s a variety. There’s a lot of different positions and different types of players I think in the first 31 picks. There’s a lot of different types of players.
It’s no secret that you have a pretty deep prospect pool. Does that depth maybe give you more flexibility to go for a more high upside but low floor, a more risky prospect with one of those picks or does that not have an impact either way?
You always feel like you can take a little bit more of a risk, but a lot of times risk maybe means bad character or poor work ethic, all the things that we don’t really want. We want the best player, but we also want the best player that can come close to hitting their ceiling. The safe pick word, I don’t like that word. We need to project, that’s what we all get paid to do; to project how good a guy is going to be. A safe pick to me, I don’t like that word. What’s he going to be, where is he going fit in and where he’s going to fit in the National Hockey League. We need to know that. But in terms of having two picks, I know some organizations look, well you have two first round picks, you can take a swing on a high upside guy. We’re going to know more on that high upside guy. If we’re going to take a swing, it’s going to be a pretty good swing. It’s not going to be, this guy could be a first line player, but he’s got a 20 percent chance of being this, no we’re not going there.
In a similar vein, does that depth that you have alter the number of picks that you might make? Would you be more likely to trade a pick now because of your depth?
Yeah that’s fair to say, that we’d at least look at it harder. If our prospect depth pool was shallow, I’m sure we’d make all our picks. The way it is right now, we’d at least listen. Again, I don’t know what’s going to come along, whether we’d flop a pick to next year, we would listen to those ideas.
In terms of the decisions that go into making the picks, how much of it is the cleared with the scouts? What they seen on ice and all the different skillsets, how much of it now is digging into mindset of players and you see in the NFL they conduct Wunderlic tests and all that. How much more are you and the organization and the scouts getting into that side of it?
Well, I believe to project the player, you have to know a lot about that player. You have to know some background, upbringing and character, there’s a lot of ways you can get it. Our guys are out there digging and trying to find out everything they can about their guy. Because in the end the ability is one thing. The ability is here, the person is going to allow the ability to reach the peak. If you have great ability but character is not great, you’re not going to reach your ceiling, I don’t care who you are, you’re not going to reach it. If you have a lot of ability and really good character, you want to be the best you can be, then, chances are you’re going to reach your ceiling. They need to find out. You should see a lot of it on the ice. You can do a lot of research too in terms of the character of the human being.
Ron, when you look at the farm system, what position do you think is the biggest need
Well, I mean, you can never have enough prospects. They’re not all going to hit. I’d love to say that all of our guys are going to hit but the reality of it is, history shows that they’re not. You can never have enough at any position.
You guys know how I talk about the middle: goaltending, defense, centers. They’re a huge part of it. Centers can play the wing, too. You can never have enough. If you want to sit and project and say, well our middle is good for the next ten years, but we don’t know that for certain. So, if there’s a centerman there, we’re going to take him.
Our defense, if you look at it, we need to restock a little bit. Within a year or two a lot of the young guys are all going to be playing, I believe, so where do you go at that point? We need that next layer coming. We’re not going to shy away from defensemen because we have a lot of good young defensemen. At some point, expansion drop may be coming up, we have free agency, you lose a guy, you move a guy to fill another position. Again, everyone looks at our D and says you’re good for the next ten years but that’s inevitably not the way it’s going to work out.
Is goaltending the biggest hit that you have to make in terms of what you just said? We just saw four teams that if one guy was down, the other guy picked him up. Is that your spot that you can’t miss on?
Well, yeah, I think it’s fair to say. The two [NHL roster] guys that we have aren’t young guys, we all know that. So, yeah, we need some youth coming up and coming through. Yeah, we need to hit on a goalie for sure. Without a doubt. That’s kind of why four years ago, we said okay we have to start drafting some goalies here, and we did. Let’s hope we hit.
That’s a lot of pressure for young guys, of which they all are, I guess you look at that in terms of Hart or Sandstrom, how they deal with the heat in their current situation?
Of course, you have to give the kids the time that they need. We’re not going to be rushing these kids and putting, essentially, their futures at risk to try to fast track. We’re not going to do that. If someone’s ready, then so be it, at any position. But we’re going to make sure they’re ready.
When people asked you about the core guys now, they’re getting up in their thirties, you said, guys might have different roles by the time one of those guys is ready.
They might eventually have different roles. You also might not depend on them quite as much because your younger guys are coming up and taking a bigger piece of the pie. So, all of a sudden, you don’t need one guy scoring 85 points, he can score 75 points or 70 points because we got these kids coming up that are scoring more and more. That’s how you build a team, you don’t build a team with having three top players and they go out every power play and they win your games. It’s just not the way it works. You saw Vegas is a good example, they were the best team in the league, not best talent, they were the best team. Teams still win, teams still win. That’s what we have to continue to build.
I know you don’t like to talk about individual players but one of the guys, Mattias Samuelsson, is tied in to one of your coaches. Can you just give us a rundown on him? Is he projected as a first round pick somewhere, do you think?
I’m not going to give our information away on anybody but Mattias is a good player. He’s big, he’s smart, he’s well-rounded. You’d call him a two-way defenseman, good size, moves well. Lots of upside. He’s going to be a good player wherever he’s going to go. I certainly wouldn’t share where we have him but don’t expect him to be waiting too long.
Is he a similar player to Kjell?
No. Big Kjell always says big man with good hands. You got the first part right, big man. [Laughs] No, he’s a different player, not as mean as Sammy, which I say that as a compliment to big Sammy. He’s more skilled than his dad.
Would you be any less likely to take Mattias because Kjell is here? I think it was before you came back, when Nick Luukko was taking him and Peter was like, really?
Our list is our list and no matter who’s on it, we’ll stick to our order for the most part. That’s just a philosophy. We’re not going to take someone or not take someone, pick someone or not pick someone based on family or organization ties or anything else. If nothing else, we've got a lot of background on him.
There are a few players in the 14 and 19 range that are playing over in Russia, Kravtsov, Denisenko, a few of them, with German Rubtsov obviously you guys took a Russian forward, I guess there was a ton of research there to see his willingness to come over. What factor does that play in terms of trying to figure out whether a guy is going to come over quickly, are we okay with him staying longer over there because of the KHL factor?
I’m not going to sit here and tell you it’s not a factor, it is. They have an option over there, an option that can pay them a lot of money too. Sometimes the incentive to come over here is less than someone from North America, and even the other European countries. We talk about it, we try to do as much research as we can. We try to figure out the path and then make our decision once we have all the information.
When guys drop into round three, four, five and six, there’s obviously it’s a considerable flaw, or there’s something whether it’s hockey IQ, they don’t have a great shot. When you get to those players that fall into those mid-rounds, is there something that they have that you feel like you can work on? I know we’ve talked about a player like Jamie Benn, whose skating wasn’t there, but then you work on it and now he’s where he’s at. Is that something that you feel like that you get a player who has everything except maybe a skater that you can bring him up to that next level.
We always look for one really good NHL quality. When you’re talking about third or fourth round, first of all, don’t minimize it. I’m saying like us, for our staff. We can’t, oh we’re in the fifth round, that’s not the way it works. We need to still try and pick a hockey player, it’s important. Pulling guys out of late rounds is important. When you look at the cycle of a hockey team and depth and everything that we need, it’s important. We have two seventh round picks, they’re friggin' important. We need to do our best to try to get the best guy and try and hit on a guy. Whether we will or not, I don’t know what the odds say, I think it’s 2.3%, whatever it is. They’re low odds, we know that but we’re going to try to do the best we can to try and hit on those guys because eventually you’re going to hit on some of those guys.
You look at Oskar and you also look at Phil Myers. Why wasn’t Phil Myers drafted? I still don’t have the answer, I wish I did because then maybe I can correct it next time. Again, if we would’ve drafted Phil Myers in the seventh round you go, 'Woah, what a player!' Guys are there, you just got to find them. Matthew Strome is a pretty good example where Matthew, his skating is his weakness. He’s got one flaw, everything else is pretty good. So, you look at Matthew, and if he can just improve it, he’s never probably going to be a great skater but if we can just ramp him up two levels, he’s got a real good chance at playing in the National Hockey League. There’s an example but there’s also other examples of guys who can really skate and you say well, I think there’s a little bit more here in terms of hockey sense than we think or he’s a really light kid and we think he’s going fill out and become a stronger player and become a better player.
There’s the guys that are 17 or 18 but they look like they’re 12, and you kind of go, well at some point this kid is going to hit puberty and grow into a man and get bigger and stronger. There’s all kind of different things but if a guy doesn’t have one NHL trait, chances are he might be a real good minor league player or East Coast League player or whatever. We look for at least one real good NHL trait.
You pretty much stuck to your guns with building this team from within. Do you think that heightens your focus more than the average team when the draft rolls around that your putting more emphasis on this than other GMs?
I don’t think so. I mean, to become a top team, the draft is just as important because two years from now, two or three years from now, you can never let off the gas pedal on any area whether it’s drafting, development, your NHL team, your minor league team, your strength conditioning, aerobic conditioning, you can’t let off. There’s 30 other teams trying to win and we’re trying to win. We gotta try a little bit harder in every area.
You mentioned Vegas before, which was interesting because I get guys saying I wonder what Hextall thinks about Vegas’ success. But you actually see them as a potential model for what you’re trying to do here when you say it’s about a team.
I don’t know if you can look at them as a model because they picked one player from every team whereas we’re drafting and developing. They are kind of re-developing that “team matters.” I won’t mention other sports but there’s some that are more individual than we are. We’re still a team sport. I think we’re still the ultimate team sport. If guys playing 8 minutes, 10 minutes don’t do their job, chances are you’re not gonna win. Some other sports aren’t like that. We are still the ultimate team sport. I think Vegas proved that to all of us this year. The more we move along here the more society and pro sports seem to put a spotlight on a star, whatever. And that’s fine but that star has got to have his teammates in our sport or you’re not gonna win. You look at Washington, they had a lot of really good players in the playoffs. Devante Smith-Pelly, do they win without Devante Smith-Pelly? Couple guys get all the credit but look what this guy did. You know what I’m saying, we are still the ultimate team sport, we really are. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to have the stars, you do. They gotta be your best players but you gotta have other pieces, they gotta feel for each other. They gotta have that chemistry that’s hard to get but again, look at Vegas.
Four years ago when you took over, the farm system it was rated one of the lowest in the NHL. Now you’re in the top 3 in most publications. Who do you give credit to? Obviously you play a big part of it but you talk about the scouts and the other people involved in the draft.
Our staff has done a terrific job. That’s their job. It’s their doing. You look at Chris Pryor and Barry and our amateur staff, they’ve done a terrific job. Our development guys, they’ve done a terrific job. Our minor league coaches, they’ve done a terrific job. The lifeline of an organization, the first piece of players comes from the amateur scouts. They essentially draft them then it moves to the development guys then it moves to either minor league coaches or the big league coaches and it’s just a cycle. There’s a lot of thing that go into it. We’re not just developing the players, it’s developing the person. We want pros. We want guys to understand the value in eating the right way and getting enough rest and recovery. There’s so much to it, becoming a pro. It gets them out of junior and it makes them think they know it all, we all did including myself. 20 years old, always think you know it all when you really don’t know a lot. It’s a long process.
I guess I’m talking more about making the picks, like a Morgan Frost, a lot of people have projected maybe 40 and you took a chance and it paid off.
That’s our whole staff. I think I talked about last year, every guy on our staff liked Morgan Frost. Part of the reason we made that deal was because Morgan Frost was on the table. We made that trade [from the perspective that] okay it’s now not a first-round pick. It’s Morgan Frost. And so much of our guys liked him. So, credit to our staff and our guys and they all went in to see him a lot. Morgan Frost has a lot of work to do, but right now he’s a better player right now than where he was drafted. Kudos to our amateur staff. There’s not one guy. Our guys all cross over. So our whole amateur staff and Chris Pryor, they did a hell of a job.
You talked in April about the amount of picks you guys have and could fill something like a stylistic need in the prospect pool. Are there any needs that you can mention that maybe two guys that you have equally ranked and give the edge to and need. Last year you guys took a lot of big wingers, you took Ratcliffe, you took Strome. Are there any needs like that you guys might be leaning towards?
Last year, we needed more some size so we got some. You gotta recognize your needs as an organization. It doesn’t mean every player is gonna hit but you try to get a clump of guys like hey we need wingers with size, okay so you draft 3 or 4 guys over a couple years. I think right shot defensemen, well, they’re hard to find. They really are. You look at the draft, there’s not a ton of them. Goal scorers, we’d like to have a goal scorer or two if we can, which no different than probably any year. We’re good in the middle, as I said, you can’t have too many centers. Goalies, I don’t see us chasing a goalie this year. If somebody’s there in a good spot where we feel good about it, fine but we’re not gonna chase a goalie. You know, a year or two from now, how many D do we have left in the minors or out and about, so I would be shocked if we don’t draft a couple defensemen.
Ron, there are some you would classify as under-sized defensemen, who are the 5’10, 5’11 range, are those guys more draftable now versus 5, 10 years ago just because the way the games changed, where you wanted the 6’2, 210 guy but now if you’re 5’9, 5’10 and 165 you can still play at this level. If you have certain other attributes.
Yeah, you've got be really careful there. Ghost isn’t 5’9, but Ghost is a good player. But you want 6 guys that are Ghost’s size, not as talented as him, of course not. You look around the league, everybody wants bigger defensemen, but there’s not enough. Supply and demand. You want a 5’9 guy that skates great, skilled as heck, or you want a 6’2 guy that skates great and skilled as heck. Reality you want the 6’2 guy. I don’t think it’s that people are coveting small defensemen. Supply and demand, you need guys that are good with the puck. You start looking down at the smaller guy, they can play. I don’t think you wanna stock a team with small defensemen.
There isn’t that fear of taking smaller guys and he is just going to be too small. Guys in your position have moved beyond that. They see more than just the size.
You have to look at it thought and got to ask yourself how high in the lineup can they play. How high are we going to take him in the draft and how high in the lineup can he play. Playing Ovechkin and Crosby and these guys.
Which is more of a premium now as compared to 10 years ago. Not saying that the 6’2” guy skate as well as the 5’9” guy but with some size, maybe is a few strides off of the 5’9” guy? Doesn’t have quite the hands? Brian Leech was an anomaly back in the day. A smaller guy can’t take a body versus a slower bigger guy that can?
Correct. It all depends on your mix. That’s the answer to your question. If you have certain guys, you’ll go for this guy. If you have a lot of these guys. We all need skill. We need skill like in our lineup, for sure on the back end. Big things changed. The big stiffs have gone out of the lineup and went from the back end and moved them up to the wing. Now they’re out of the league. Then came the next wave, where you go, ‘how do we fill those holes?’ Now instead of having the big tough guy back there, you might have specialty power play guy back there. That doesn’t maybe defend as well, but he does other things that need to fill the holes amongst the group you have. We all need power play guys. We all need penalty killers. Don’t underestimate penalty killers on the back end. Your whole mix, you look at 5-on-5, PK, PP. Okay, do we have enough of everything. Typically, most of us don’t. They’re hard holes to fill. I certainly feel good about our group, our young group. In terms of the mix, the size. We got some big kids there that are skilled. Sanheim’s a big kid. Myers is a big kid. Big Sam Morin is a really big kid. We feel good about our size back there. Obviously Sam doesn’t have the skill level as the other two, but he’s got a nice skill level for big guy. The other two have a pretty high skill level. Put them in with Ghost. Provy’s a thick guy. He’s not a big guy, he’s a thick guy. Feel good about Hagger. I like the mix of our group coming. Right shot, it’s a big fill.
Between the AHL and the NHL with the goaltender situation, some decisions to be made there. Any clarity in terms of what you are going to do with personnel or anything?
No clarity at this point. If we have too many goalies, we have too many goalies. I’d rather have too many than not enough. If you don’t have enough, you got a problem. If you have too many, you have a problem. I’d rather deal with that than with not enough. What looks like or feels like one too many then. We’ll deal with it.
Can you give us an update on Sam Morin? Do you expect him to play in February or March?
It’s still too early to comment. Right when I talked to you guys earlier, it was February. He’s coming along very well. Actually I just talked to Jimmy this morning. Coming along very well. All of our guys are. Elliott’s coming along well. Neuvy’s coming along well. Simmer, I actually saw this morning. He’s doing well. Everybody right now is either on target or ahead.
Did Elliott need another procedure? Possibly need a cleanup surgery after the season?
He had his hip cleaned up.
How about the guys that didn’t need surgery? Provy and Sean Couturier?
Provy is good. He was over, I think, a week ago. He’s pretty much back. Couturier is good. He was for a couple weeks.
A few years ago, Anthony Stolarz looked like he was making headway towards the NHL.These two injuries set him back. Is this going to be danger to his future or do you feel it’s just set back and he has to start over?
It’s certainly not how you script it out. The kid misses pretty much the entire season. You got to be careful giving up. We certainly haven’t given up on Stolie. He’s still a good young goalie. The path hasn’t been smooth necessarily, but he’s shown a lot of growth in his young career. We believe it will continue. We’re not going to give up on him. He works hard, he’s actually down there today. Again, he was healthy at end of season. He’s good to go. We’ll see how things going. Like I said, I would rather have too many than too few.
Earlier you mentioned goal scoring as potential need. The last couple drafts there have been a few players that went around the range you guys picked that sort of fit that mold, like Kieffer Bellows in 2016 and Eeli Tolvanen in 2017. You guys picked more balanced forwards rather than a guy like that. Was that result of you liking a guy you picked more or is that “sniper shoot first” one you value a little bit less, in terms of your internal ranking?
We value goal scorers. If you look like at the second layer like Ratcliffe, Wade Allison, they’re not Ovechkin goal scorers. They’re goalscorers that will certainly chip in we believe at some point or have the potential to chip in. We pretty much go by our list. We have those players you mentioned ranked and we’ll see how our list falls. We’re at the point, ‘do we tweak it a little bit?’ Maybe, if it’s close. Now that we have more depth in our prospect pool.
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