Sounds as if Dave Hakstol's winning culture will be good for Flyers

THE OTHER big news in Grand Forks on Monday was that the University of North Dakota quickly found its new coach, a guy who had been a well-regarded assistant coach at both the NHL level and at the college level, a guy who had logged 241 games in the NHL and who has gained renown for developing young defensemen.

North Dakota promoted Dave Hakstol's 50-year-old assistant, Brad Berry.

If you're trying to figure out why Flyers general manager Ron Hextall, weaned entirely under the traditional hockey substructure as both a player and administrator, would reach into college for his all-important first coaching hire, start there. Berry's resumé is so strong that his hire came almost simultaneously with Hakstol's news conference, his salary potentially escalating to a little over $400,000 via bonuses and incentives.

Pretty good for someone who is 0-0 as a head coach at any level, and clearly an indication of how the school feels about the culture he was a big part of during Hakstol's 11-year stint as the head coach - which included seven trips to the Final Four.

I admit, I thought the same thing many did once I realized none of those trips ended in a championship. The last thing we need here is a guy who builds us a culture that gets close perennially but doesn't finish, the hockey equivalent of Andy Reid's 14-year reign as Eagles coach - and so far, the MO of Chip Kelly, as well.

Reid had a system, and Kelly has already been teased enough about his so-called culture, and let's not even start in about Brett Brown - who's been rebuilding so much in his two seasons as coach, we still don't know what kind of coach he is or can be.

But there's a difference here, a significant one, pointed out unintentionally by Hakstol on Monday when he was speaking regretfully of the one-and-done nature of the college tournament.

"I'm able to compartmentalize one year to the next. And I look at every year a little bit differently," he said. "I look at the way our teams played particularly in the last two Frozen Fours - here in Philadelphia and this past year in Boston.

"Our team played extremely well. But it's difficult, you know, one-game shot. You don't have a chance to go back the next night, tweak a couple of things and extend the series. It's sudden death."

This is what Hextall sees. The quick adjustments, the tweaking that is so necessary in both the day-to-day world of the NHL and inside the best-of-seven wars that build and destroy coaching reputations. Hakstol's teams made the NCAA Tournament in each of his 11 seasons as their coach, a streak surpassed by only two teams in college hockey history. Those teams had a history of starting slowly as new, young players were melded into his system - but always finished strong.

Here's what Hextall also sees: new, young players arriving to the Flyers over the next few years, players from all types of systems and cultures and journeys.

According to a story in the Grand Forks Herald, it took Hextall three tries to budge Hakstol from his home of the last 15 years. His pitch, according to the story, was this: "I want you here. I want your culture. I want what you have at North Dakota and to bring it to our place."

Now here's former player and current Devil Travis Zajac, one of 20 North Dakota players in the NHL, to NJ Advance Media the other day: "It was a lot like an NHL organization in the way he prepared us on and off the ice and wanted us to act as individuals."

Zajac played at North Dakota at the start of Hakstol's 11-year run as head coach, a time when the coach was 35 and without his own children.

"As you go through the different things not only in the game but in life, you change your perspective and your outlook on everything," Hakstol said the other day. "I would say I'm obviously much more settled than the guy who took the job at North Dakota 11 years ago."

But even that guy, though, said Zajac, was always honest and "easy to talk to," a contrasting description to the one of an icy-stared taskmaster that has carried the conversation the last few days. And scares those of us who recall the coaches who have come and gone quickly by trying that approach with players with long, lucrative contracts who know that if they don't fit in one place, they will in another.

"He cares about his players and he wants you to succeed," Zajac said.

"He was easy to talk to. He loves the game of hockey. Obviously, he wanted to win, but he wanted to see the guys he recruited and the players he brought in become great NHL players and good people. That's what I remember most about him."

If that's the guy attached to the culture, the Flyers might have finally tapped into something, something to finally allow them to emerge from the shadow of their past and create a new, enviable identity.

On Twitter: @samdonnellon

Columns: ph.ly/Donnellon