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Flyers' process shows there's no magic in creating a winner

Ron Hextall is taking his time in trying to remake the Flyers, and fans will have to live with it.

Flyers general manager Ron Hextall shouldn’t allow pressure from the team’s fans and followers force him off his slow and steady rebuilding plan.
Flyers general manager Ron Hextall shouldn’t allow pressure from the team’s fans and followers force him off his slow and steady rebuilding plan.Read moreDAVID MAIALETTI

A few big thoughts and small thoughts on the Flyers, in the aftermath of this year's NHL draft…

We hear a lot about "processes" these days in Philadelphia. The 76ers, of course, have The Process, and its latest advancements have so energized the team's fan base that the Sixers already are setting organizational records for season-ticket sales. The Phillies have their process, but fewer people are as sanguine about that process compared to The Process. The Eagles' process, for the moment, can be boiled down to this: We have Carson Wentz, and we'll figure the rest out as we go along. Which, if and only if Wentz turns out to be as good as the Eagles hope he can be, may yet work.

Then there are the Flyers, who have offered the most interesting "process" test case of all because general manager Ron Hextall's methodical, deliberate approach to rebuilding them has been so stark a break from the franchise's traditions. Over the years, the Flyers have conditioned their fans and followers to expect and/or call for immediate, dramatic action whenever the team fails to meet expectations. Fire that coach. Trade that guy. Sign that goaltender. Do something! There are strains of this thinking in each of the four fan bases, but it seems particularly acute among Flyers fans.

Most seasons, the team was competitive, often very good. Many seasons, Ed Snider insisted the Flyers go for it. And there you are. More, because the Flyers haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1975, and because Philadelphia has celebrated just one championship among its top four professional franchises over the last 34 years, it's natural for fans to fall back on those familiar plaintive, rhetorical complaints: You want us to be more patient? Do you know what it's like to root for these teams?

That impatience is understandable, and it's difficult not to be sympathetic to it. Still, whenever you try to gauge the collective mood of Philadelphia sports fans —  through social media, emails, talk-radio callers, talk-radio hosts, online polls, or anecdotal shoot-the-bull sessions with family and friends — you often find a shared assumption, an unspoken belief, underlying much of the frustration.

It's not just that people are tired of watching their favorite teams lose so frequently. It's that they seem to think that every franchise's headquarters has a button on the wall labeled PUSH IF YOU WANT TO WIN, and that the button is protected under glass, and that the only thing stopping each franchise from winning more games, winning a division title, winning a championship is a recalcitrant owner or general manager or coach who simply refuses to break the glass and push the button. Call up the prospects. Pay big money for that free agent. Give up players and picks to get a franchise quarterback. (If nothing else, the Eagles sure understand their market.) Bench that guy. Play that other one. Do something! There's a shortcut somewhere. Each team just has to find the right one.

Except there are no shortcuts, and Philadelphia's long history of sports misery doesn't change the fact that there are no shortcuts, and Philadelphia's sports fans' white-hot desire to end that misery doesn't change the fact that there are no shortcuts. Even the good fortune that touched the Flyers this spring—their jump in the draft lottery from the No. 13 pick to the No. 2 pick, which allowed them to select Nolan Patrick on Friday night — isn't necessarily a quick fix, and that sort of luck certainly can't be counted on.

The notion that Ron Hextall should accelerate his "process" because the Flyers have gone 42 years without a Stanley Cup and their fans are loyal and demanding and dying to hold another parade down Broad Street is foolish in the extreme. It exemplifies the very thinking that put the Flyers in a position where Hextall pretty much had to start fresh, replenish the farm system, and take his time in trying to make the Flyers an elite team again. None of this means Hextall's plan will succeed. None of it means every decision or move he has made or will make will work out. But in the absence of a button on the wall, it's the proper course of action.

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There are plenty of cheap jokes to be made (and trust me, I'm happy to make them) about the Flyers' becoming the latest team in the city to use a high draft pick on an oft-injured center. Patrick, who turns 19 in September, has suffered two sports hernias in his young career. But Grant Armstrong, the general manager of Patrick's junior team, the Brandon Wheat Kings, said in a telephone interview before the draft that those injuries wouldn't have stopped him, if he were an NHL GM, from selecting Patrick.

"Not at all," Armstrong said. "Injuries are part of the game, and for Nolan, it happened earlier, and I don't expect there will be any problem with Nolan Patrick in terms of his ability at the NHL level.

"He's extremely intelligent. He's a very smart player who sees the ice very, very well and makes good decisions. Makes his teammates better. He competes every night that he's on the ice — a real complete player."

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Last season, according to research by hockey writer James Mirtle, the Flyers were among the smallest teams in the NHL. The average height of the players on their opening-night roster was barely more than 6 feet tall, the shortest in the league, and the average weight was 196.4 pounds. Just two teams, the Vancouver Canucks and Chicago Blackhawks, were lighter. Being small isn't necessarily a bad thing, if a team has the overall speed and skill to overcome its relative lack of size. The Flyers didn't.

It's worth noting, then, that Hextall appears to be taking steps to bulk up the Flyers. Three of the first four skaters whom the Flyers drafted this year were Patrick and wings Isaac Ratcliffe and Matthew Strome. At 6-foot-2 and 198 pounds, Patrick is both the shortest and lightest of the three. Ratcliffe is 6-6, and Strome is 207 pounds. Jori Lehtera, the forward whom the Flyers acquired in the Brayden Schenn trade, is 6-2, 212 —  an inch taller and 17 pounds heavier than Schenn. And don't forget: It's possible, maybe likely, that forward Oskar Lindblom (6-2, 196) and defensemen Robert Hagg (6-2, 204) and Sam Morin (6-7, 227) will join the Flyers as rookies this season.