Flyers GM Ron Hextall met with the media on Wednesday to his season wrap-up.

Not surprisingly, he had no update on the future on coach Craig Berube, who remains in limbo and is swaying in the wind.

Although Hextalll denied it profusely, all signs point toward the Flyers playing a waiting game to see whether Mike Babcock, Claude Julien or Todd McLellan become available on the coaching market.

Here's a full transcript, per the Flyers PR department, of Hextall's presser at Skate Zone from today:

Flyers GM Ron Hextall
April 15, 2015

On Craig Berube’s status

He’s our head coach and if something changes I’ll let you guys know. At this point in the process… we’re going to evaluate everything, as I said, and at this point the decision hasn’t been made.

On whether the decision has to do with whoever else is available

No. This is singular in itself. There’s no waiting around to see if someone comes available or what else is out there. It’s not part of the equation.

On waiting to make a decision when other teams already have

The wait is that I’m going to be methodical. I want to make the right decision. I’m not going to make a quick decision to appease people, or to follow along like it’s supposed to be done. I’m going to do everything I can to do the due diligence that’s appropriate to make the decision. Once I get there, then we’ll let people know. I’m not going to make a hasty decision and look back and regret it. I’m going to do everything I can to gather all the information out there and make the right decision. That goes for a lot of decisions we have to make.

On a timetable

I’d like to make it as soon as possible in fairness to Chief. So we’ll keep working at it, and as soon as we get there…

Everybody operates differently. I’m not a knee-jerk type of a guy. I typically go through a process before making decisions rather than make hasty decisions. I guess for some people it’s the way to go. For me it’s not.

Have you and Berube talked?

We talked on Sunday, I think it was.

On Berube’s reaction

He was fine with it.

What are you looking at in the evaluation?

I’m not going to get into details. It’s essentially an evaluation of the job he did.

If you knew what your players’ stats and rankings would be at the end of the year and you still didn’t make the playoffs, would you be surprised?

Yeah. That’s probably not typical.

On reviewing the season

Well, again, you evaluate everything. 82 games in six months, it’s a long time. It’s a lot of stuff for me to sift through. Like I’m not a knee-jerk guy; that’s not the way I operate. So when I come to that decision, Craig will be the first to know.

Anything this season you heard from the players?

There’s a lot of questions I asked in terms of essentially what happened. But I’m not going to get into details of what happens behind closed doors with the players. But obviously you gather information.

Did anything surprise you?

No. I think a lot of the sentiment was… I’ll say this, our guys were extremely disappointed. You can tell when people are saying that and when they mean it, and I genuinely believe our guys are disappointed. I think their thinking was along the same lines as ours as an organization was, which essentially was we were good enough to be in the playoffs. If we weren’t, it’s a different story. If we laid everything out there and probably played as well as we could have every night, and were consistent, we’d be in the playoffs. So I think everyone feels the same way. As an organization, we’re extremely disappointed to be sitting here today, not involved. And I think the players, to their credit, feel the same way.

On whether Berube coming back with one year on his contract makes him a lame duck

I have no idea. I haven’t thought that far through. I’ll just make the decision and we’ll go from there.

On whether Hextall advises on lineup decisions

No. Those are his decisions. As a manager you talk to your coach about what he’s thinking, but I never told him once who to put in or who not to put in. We talk about things… we’re both hockey people, we have a sense for the team, so we talk about things, but in the end, he goes down to his coaches huddles and he makes decisions. That’s his job. I don’t want to coach, and I’m not one of those guys who has a big influence on the lineup. I don’t believe in it.

On the pros and cons to keeping and evaluating further

It’s just a decision that’s going to be made, for better or for worse. I’m not going to get into the details of what I’m looking at or why or how long. In the end, [I don’t think I’ll] explain every detail I’m going to go through.

Did you change your mind on what to do during the second half of the year?

You evaluate everything. Your amateur staff, your pro staff, your training staff, your medical staff… there’s a lot of things at the end of the year that you have to evaluate. Because essentially at the end of the season, my job now is let’s look at every department and see if we can get better. Whether people get better, whether we demand a little bit more, whatever happens, we’re going to look at everything. That essentially is what’s going on the next couple months.

On his message of patience vs. Ed Snider’s comments

I’ll tell you guys this again – our relationship is phenomenal. I’d like to know exactly what he said that isn’t on the same page as the things that I said, because I haven’t seen it and haven’t heard it. So anybody who thinks there’s something there… I’m confused.

On the idea of being able to compete for the Stanley Cup next year

You go into every season trying to compete for the Stanley Cup. To win a Stanley Cup, you have to make the playoffs. Our goal next year is to make the playoffs. I’ve said this and I’ll say it now, and say it again… if we can do something with our personnel to be better in October, we will do it, without question, assuming it’s not sacrificing our future. We’re not going to trade young players, we’re not going to trade picks, as a rule. But if we can do something… free agent, trade, something along those lines, we will absolutely do it. My job right now is to keep our future going, keep our picks, draft well but also make our team better in October. I don’t like sitting here today. I’d much rather be sitting here in two months. We’re not happy with where we’re at, we’re very disappointed, and we’re going to do everything we can to get better for October. Can we compete for a Stanley Cup next year? Given the Flyers made it on the last day in 2010, squeaked in, and went to the Final… you get into the playoffs, anything’s possible. Any of the 16 teams in there right now can win the Stanley Cup.

On whether getting the Cup sometimes requires the sacrifices he’s unwilling to make

We are not going to throw away our future to try to win the Stanley Cup next year. I can assure you of that. Are we going to try and win the Stanley Cup? Yes. Yes we are. Along with the 29 other teams. But we are not going to trade top young players for 29-30 year olds to try to take a one-year run at the Cup. That is not going to happen.



Has your list of who you consider top young players changed at all?

No. You’ve got to be really careful evaluating over weeks, or even months. When you’re evaluating a player, you’re better to be evaluating them over weeks, months and years. I think my job, our staff’s job, is to evaluate players, but also to evaluate where we think a player can get to. So potential is huge. Be careful not to trade young players when they’re young and all of a sudden… you know.

Does not making the playoffs fall on the players or the head coach?

It’s all of the above including me. We’re all working towards the same thing. I put the players on the ice, Chief coaches them and the players play. I don’t think there was one player I met with Monday or Tuesday that was happy with their season, including Jake Voracek, Claude Giroux, Michael Del Zotto and Mark Streit… guys that had, by the numbers, pretty good years. I don’t think anybody’s happy sitting here today.

On whether Berube made any mistakes

That’s a question for him I think. I’m evaluating, but if you’re asking me whether he made any mistakes or not, that’s probably a question for him, I’d think. Some of our players probably didn’t play well enough. I think that’s fair to say.

On the lineup
That’s part of it for sure. It’s individuals, and then how individuals collectively play with other individuals. I think there’s times this year where Jake’s and [Giroux’s] line carried us for 35 games, 40 games, and then Coots, their line kind of heated up a little bit, and then towards the end, Coots again, and Jake and G hit a dry patch where we actually won some games, but getting everybody playing a good game together was a struggle. It seemed like when certain players struggled, then other players struggled. And we didn’t’ seem to have a collective effort in terms of performance from lines, D-pairs.... you look at the inconsistencies of our year, there’s a lot of little things to point at why we’re sitting here today. But the inconsistency was a big part of the problem.

Reaction to Couturier’s comments about being more than a shutdown player

I’m thrilled. We don’t want him to be a shutdown player either. We want him to be both. We want him to be a 200 foot player. That’s how you win championships, win playoff series, you make the playoffs… with 200 foot players. Sean Couturier is a good two-way player. Sean Couturier is also 22 years old. Be really careful. Be really, really careful. Do we want more from him? Yeah. Does he want more from himself? Yeah. Is he going to be in more offensive roles as we move forward? That’s a coach’s decision, but I suspect he will. Don’t forget – I think Coots had the most breakaways on our team. He did a lot of good things. Did he play where we hoped? Probably not quite. But it’s not like Sean had a disastrous year. When you get a big guy who’s a smart player, he’s gifted offensively, and a shutdown guy, you really have something. We really like Coots. But again, he’s a kid. He’s a boy. Am I disappointed in his year? Eh. Could he have had a better year? Probably. But again, he’s 22 years old. He could be a freshman coming out of college, or maybe not even his junior year of college. He’s a young guy, he’s been around for a while, so you tend to want to expect and push and everything else, and that’s part of our job. But really be careful, because sometimes patience is needed.

On Couturier’s production and defensive zone starts

What did he hit, 39 points? He actually did produce. He’s 22 years old and he’s at 39 points… that’s pretty good. Starting in the D-zone, if you’re a two way player, you’re going to start in both zones. Claude’s an offensive guy, he’s probably going to start… you’re looking at a single entity there. Coots is probably our best defensive center, that’s fair to say. Offensively he produced, but not at a high rate, so you’re going to use him a certain amount in the defensive zone. And we have someone else come up maybe next year – I’m not the coach, and that’s why I struggle a little bit answering your question – but maybe Bellemare takes more of those. Those two guys, they came on late in the year, but when Bellie came into the year, he was kind of an unknown, he hadn’t played in the NHL. As the year went on he got better and better and better. So I would assume he’s probably going to take more of that next year. But Coots is probably always going to take a certain amount of defensive draws, depending on the building and everything else, the matchups. There’s a lot more that goes on there than just putting Sean out in the offensive zone. There’s matchups, you’ve gotta put your guys out first on the road… there’s a lot of little things that go through a coach’s mind, and there’s reasons they do things.


Is it fair to blame the coach at all for not making playoffs when you say you’re not going to mortgage the future to go on a Cup run?

We’re not going to mortgage our future, but that doesn’t mean we’re not a playoff team and we’re not going to try to make the playoffs. They’re really two different things. Anybody that thinks we’re just going to sit here for two or three years and just wait, no, it’s not happening. If we can get better, if we can sign players, if we can find a trade that makes sense, we’re going to do it. We’re not happy with not making the playoffs. Quite frankly, it pisses me right off. No one’s happy. That being said, we’re not going to trade for a one or two year window. That’s not happening. I don’t know if I can be any clearer to you guys. We’ll move forward and do anything we can to do to try and become a better team this summer. Part of becoming a better team is making our players better. The younger players, Brayden Schenn and Coots, our big guys gotta come back strong again. They’ve got to be in the best shape of their lives. The little things we can do, our leadership, we can grow there. There’s a lot of one percenters…You look at the one goal games, the difference between winning and losing is right there. That’s it. It’s a lot of things. It’s coaching, it’s players, it’s putting the right players on the ice it’s a lot of little things. It’s nutrition. It’s getting gthe proper rest. There’s’ a whole bunch of things out there that we’ve got to try to get a little bit better at, and yeah, we’re going to try to get better on the ice as well.

On the Umberger/Hartnell trade

There’s numerous reasons we made that trade. Obviously Scott’s a good player, and he had a good year. R.J.’s a good player, and he didn’t have a good year. I talked to R.J. yesterday, and he’d been hurt for maybe a year and a half. It’s been bothering his training last summer. So he’s going to get in the best shape of his life and come back and be the best he can be. The term, part of the trade was looking three years down the road, we had five years on Hartsy and three years on R.J. It’s part of what we figured was going to get us to where we needed to go. Scott’s a good player, there’s no doubt about it. Would I do it right now? Yeah I would. You look a couple years ahead and we’ve got some young players who are going to be up, and that’s part of the thinking. Again, I thought R.J. would be a better player this year, and so did R.J., and if he had been, it would have been fine. You’ve got to look at a trade over a course of years. We’ll look back in three , four, five years and we’ll see.

…

On leadership

Here’s what I say to that. Our team has sort of been turned over to G and Jake and Wayne Simmonds. I can tell you Wane Simmonds took a huge jump this year in terms of leadership. Jake Voracek took a huge jump. I think Mase took a huge jump. But the fact of the matter is our leadership is young, it needs to get better and it needs to grow from within. I can tell you that the things those guys are talking about now are a lot different from what they were talking about last summer. To add a guy that’s 35 years old and a so called leader, all of us older players, as you go through it, the older you get, the less your role becomes, the less you lead. That’s reality. We expect our players to become better leaders. They have, they’ve showed a lot of growth, and I believe they’ll continue to show a lot of growth. The first thing in leadership is going out in that rink every day, every practice, every drill, every game, and playing hard. And the guys I just mentioned, they do that. That’s the first part. You can’t lead without that. I think Kimmo, he’s been around a long time and he’s a great player, a great leader. I think the biggest thing with him, and we need to get better at this as a group, is he’s a calming influence. He puts things into perspective. Rather than losing four or five games in a row and guys getting a little bit antsy, Kimmo says OK guys, let’s just settle down here, go into the next game. We can get better at that. Our guys are younger, we’re building something here. We’ve got top players, and I believe in the next two or three years you won’t be talking about our leadership. You can’t go out and sign three or four older guys and expect they can lead your team. Nick Schultz, he’s new this year, he’s a leader on our team. For the first little while he was sort of feeling things out. You don’t want to walk in and bust the doors down. That’s not in Nick’s nature… he’s more of a quiet leader. We’ve got Mark Streit, who’s a good older leader. Leadership is maybe average on our team. We need to bump it up. We’ll go through things between now and the start of next season, we’ll come up with things.

On the notion of panicking

If you’re talking to one person who’s saying we panic… I think in critical situations this year, I think we can get better. It is emotional, for sure. Are we going to get better at it? Yes we are. Are our guys going to become better leaders… we’ll do things this summer to assist them in becoming better leaders. But I don’t’ think our leadership is as bad as people make it out to be. I just mentioned Nick Schultz – you guys watch him every game. Leadership is going out there every night and playing hard, and playing for the team. Does anybody embody that more than Nick Schultz? I don’t think so. Mark Streit, he’s a leader. He’s been around. And like I said, our young guys are coming to that age where they’re going to become top leaders. There’s no doubt in my mind. Claude Giroux is going to be a top leader. Jake Voracek is going to be a top leader. Wayne Simmonds is going to be a top leader. In time, Coots and Brayden, they might be a little young for that, but in time they are too. It doesn’t just happen overnight. There’s a guy like Bob Clarke, who is a born leader. But I’m going to tell you right now, they are few and far between. You think you can go out and find a Bob Clarke, I’ve got news for you – they’re hard. How many of them are in the league right now?

[Missed question]

For a short term gain, we’re not going to take long-term losses, in terms of trading something we value. My job is the hockey team, not the sales. My job is to make our hockey team as good as we can make it in October, but keep my eye on where we’re headed here.

On Del Zotto

We’ll re-sign him. He’s restricted, so there’s no hurry. I’ll have conversations within the next probably week or two.

On a wish list

I’d like to find an upgrade on defense, whether it be a free agent or whatever. I’d like to find a skilled forward. That’s my wish list. Free agency, trade, [whatever.] We’ll look at that. We’ll see what’s out there and look around at the trade market.

On changes in other aspects of the organization

Scouting staff, medical staff… no, I don’t. But we’ll see as we go along. Medical staff, no. Scouting staff, you never know.

On if there’s a timeframe on Berube

No, but I’d like to do it as soon as possible, because I don’t like the position that Chief’s in right now.

Do you consult with other people?

I have a staff, I use my staff for a lot of things. Might as well use more minds than one, right?

Reaction to player comments from Monday

I didn’t really see what a lot of the players said, to be honest. I’ve heard some things. I sat with Vinny. I heard him and Chief couldn’t survive or something like that, I don’t know. Vinny, it hasn’t worked. It hasn’t worked for them and it hasn’t worked for us. Where we go from here, quite frankly I don’t know. I really don’t. We have an obligation to him obviously and we’ll fulfill our obligation, but…

Would you consider a buyout?

No.

The coach is tasked with squeezing the most out of the players that he can. How much of a concern is what you didn’t get from your secondary players?

That’s what you want from your coach – to get the most out of all your players. You're never probably going to get 100 percent. That’s what you're hoping for. That’s part of the evaluation process, for sure. That’s how you evaluate a coach - did he get the most out of the players, did he use them in the right situation, things like that. Some of them, it’s the cart and the horse. Did the player play himself down? As far as the roster moves and stuff, if we’re sitting here in the playoffs right now nobody’s talking about lines or anything else. You look at the top teams in the league and there’s still a lot of movement over the course of the season. It’s part of the way you motivate players, putting them in different situations, maybe you give a guy a little more when he’s playing well, a little less when he’s not. It’s all part of it. Again, you’ve got to look at your players too. If they’re not giving you everything they can or they’re complaining about this or that, you’ve got to take a peek at that too, and try to figure out what’s going on.

Where does Vinny stand?

You look and you say OK, he’s on the fourth line. There’s two pretty good players there. Bellie’s a pretty good player. He makes plays. I think Vinny had chances to score, and at times he didn’t score. Vinny’s a goal scorer. You can sit and say he should have been played higher, because he would have scored more, but if he’d scored more, maybe he would have gone higher in the lineup. It’s a cart and a horse thing. Vinny needs to be productive. He needs to produce in order to help our team win. Craig’s got one obligation, and that’s to put the best team on the ice that he sees fit every night.


How does that situation get resolved?

I don’t know.

Well, my understanding when he came here was that he would play either center or right wing. Vinny’s a shooter, and if he’s on the right side that’s a one-timer for him. If you’re a scorer, you’re licking your chops. He’s more comfortable in the middle, but so are a lot of guys. You could ask Chris VandeVelde, he’d probably say he’s more comfortable in the middle too, I played the middle my whole life. But on almost every team, you have more centers [than wingers]. You look at the world championship team for Canada, they have 12 forwards, and I want to say nine of them are centermen. Your best players typically are centermen. So as they come up to the NHL, some of them have to move to the wing. That’s the way it works.

Can they adjust to that at the NHL level?

Most can. The centermen are typically your smartest players and your best players. They have to play the whole ice. It’s a lot easier to take a centerman and put him on the wing than it is to take a winger and try to make them a centerman. That’s tough. They’re not wired the same, they haven’t done it their whole life. It’s much easier to play the wing than it is the middle. That’s typically why your best players are in the middle.

On whether the roster will be different

I don’t’ know. Talk to me in September I guess. You never know because you don’t’ know who else is going to want to do something. It’s all hypothetical.

On possibly winning the lottery

Wouldn't that be sweet. Well obviously it would be huge. What do they say, prepare for the worst and hope for the best? That’s where I’m at. It would be great.

On the shootout

Let’s go to 4-on-4 and 3-on-3. You know what, if you look at our save percentage, it’s not great, and our shooting percentage is not great. Obviously the two of them together are not a good combination. … how would you going into the year, I would never think Claude is going to be 1-for-12. Next year he’s not going to be 1-for-12. Jake, obviously a good shooter, Simmer did a good job for us. Coots I know can be better. A guy like Michal Handzus is really good in shootouts, and he’s a lot like Coots … really smart, deceptive, not the most skilled player but really smart – I’m talking about Handzus, not Coots. So I think Coots can be better. I think on paper we should be decent in shootouts; certainly better than we are. In saying that, can we get better, adding a skill player, probably. How do you explain G being 1-for-12? Like I said, I’ve seen him… you can work at it. It’s not something after practice where you can go… the ice is bad, and the goalies only want so many. It’s a hard thing to practice. Can it be practiced before practice… probably. Take it upon yourself, watch film, watch how guys are successful, where they’re shooting, again the percentages… there’s things we can try to really, really get into the nuts and bolts of it and try to get better.

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