Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Hayes: Flyers should have traded Giroux, Voracek when they had the chance

IT WAS early April 2015. The course of action seemed so obvious; so logical; but, ultimately, too repellant for Ron Hextall.

IT WAS early April 2015. The course of action seemed so obvious; so logical; but, ultimately, too repellant for Ron Hextall.

The Flyers had just missed the playoffs for the second time in three seasons. Hextall, in his first full season as general manager, was preparing to fire coach Craig Berube. The time was ripe. It was time to remake the miscast roster. Time to chop from the top, to reap young talent in what was becoming an ever- younger NHL. That summer was the time to harvest talent for rookie coach Dave Hakstol, which he then could mold in his image.

It was time to trade Claude Giroux and Jake Voracek.

It was time to give the "C" to Wayne Simmonds. It was time to sell Giroux's genius at its peak; time to maximize Voracek's value as an emerged All-Star facing free agency a year later. It would have hurt, but it was time to sell.

They did not.

Now, they cannot.

The trade deadline arrives at 3 p.m. Wednesday. A philly.com poll of 4,331 voters Tuesday showed that Giroux is the Flyer most voters want to see traded; 28.7 percent, in fact. Too bad.

Unless some team sees eleventh-hour hidden value in one or the other, both "G" and Jake will remain the two-headed face of a franchise that seems resigned to miss the playoffs for the third time in five seasons, a franchise with no playoff series wins since 2012.

Giroux and Voracek will remain as well-paid reminders that rebuilding seldom happens in an eyeblink. This is not an outrage; just bad planning.

Hextall has sold patience and organic growth since his promotion from assistant GM in 2014. His co-tenants at the Wells Fargo Center know that the queasy, seasick sensation of what "patience" feels like. Really, they're kind of the same thing: waiting for Embiid and Noel and Simmonds to play; and, hoping against hope for the futures of Rubtsov and Vorobyov, Sandstrom and Sanheim, Myers and Morin. They will arrive one day. Will Captain Claude and the Happy Czech still be skating?

The seas are choppy now, but rebuilding is rough. The presence of Giroux and Voracek just make the waves seem rougher. They raise expectations, foolish expectations.

With a little more courage and a lot more foresight, Hextall could have traded one, or both, for a significant haul of more economic youth (Giroux surely would have waived his no-trade clause). Such a purge so soon after the exit of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter might have enraged the fan base, but the atmosphere was right. It was the Demolition Era in Philadelphia. Hexy, a returning hero, had more local equity than Chip Kelly or Andy MacPhail.

Sam Hinkie? He'd have traded "G," Jake and Lauren Hart.

It was clear to some, if not to Hextall, that, given the Flyers' composition in 2015 and their planned reconstruction, they had no chance to win big. Sure, they might float around the fringes of NHL's postseason group but, frankly, they weren't going to win a playoff series for at least two years, maybe three. As such, you simply cannot allot $33 million to two players for two seasons. Clearly, though, Hextall disagreed.

Oh, well. That ship has sailed. At this point, considering their salaries, age and production, neither Giroux nor Voracek would bring much return. Hextall & Co. can only hope that they experience a renaissance. That, too, seems unlikely.

Giroux is a 5-11 (no he's not), 185-pound, 29-year-old finesse center in his ninth grueling season, undersized and is diminishing by the day. He averaged 1.02 points per game from 2010-2015 and went to three All-Star games. He has averaged 0.79 points per game the past two seasons and spent the last two All-Star breaks resting. Teams have leaned on him, and they have stopped him. He averaged 0.30 goals per game from 2010-2016. He is averaging 0.19 this season, and is a minus-18.

You could see this coming; it arrived with a thud last spring in the first-round loss to the Capitals. Giroux had 61 points in his first 57 career playoff games but the Caps stifled him: one assist in six games. The Flyers won two games. They were shut out twice, scored a total of six goals and never scored more than two in a game. It was Fool's Gold.

Like Giroux, Voracek had one point in the series against the Capitals. Like Giroux, Voracek has seen his production dwindle, too; from 0.89 points per game from 2012-15 to 0.78 since. Voracek is a minus-20 this season.

There are mitigating circumstances. Matt Read, Sean Couturier, Michael Raffl and Dale Weise underperformed this season. That, too, lies at Hextall's feet.

Hextall's youth infusion fizzled, too. After a fine rookie season, defenseman Shayne "Ghost" Gostisbehere has, in fact, played like an undefined, shimmering apparition. Rookie forward Travis Konecny is undersized and underwhelming. The defense was porous; the goaltending, inconsistent and the coach, a year removed from college, unequipped to manufacture change.

None of these mitigating circumstances completely excuses the play of Giroux and Voracek. None has had much to do with the fact that they weren't traded two years ago, when trading them made sense.

hayesm@phillynews.com

@inkstainedretch