The Hinkie Effect on the Flyers
The Flyers are winless after four games. They still stink in shootouts, probably because they don’t have an abundance of finesse and skill players on the roster. The defense is a sore spot. They join only the Panthers, Hurricanes, and Oilers as the only clubs without a win. Aside from a group of hardcore diehards, the city is okay with this. It helps that the Eagles are 5-1. Most of all, it helps that Sam Hinkie is in town.
Sam Hinkie’s forward-thinking vision has changed the mentality of the city’s sports fan. We can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. The light out of mid-level mediocrity, where the Flyers have called home for most of the last decade with the exception of a lucky run or two. Hinkie has demonstrated that a combination of patience and losing is a far better strategy than losing and panic.
Holmgren and Snider never handled losing well. That’s a good quality to have in an owner. Owners should be passionate and determined to win. General Managers need to be determined to win, but they need to be more logical and less emotional.
Paul Holmgren seemed to run the Flyers with the same emotional need to win as the Ed Snider, basically at all costs. However, slow and steady wins the race. Holmgren never won the race. That could be because he felt the pressure of ownership and the fanbase to win and win now. That pressure walked him into an extension of Chris Pronger that might be as bad of a gamble as Amaro’s gamble with Howard. The Pronger move came a few years too late, especially with the amount of minutes Pronger had logged over his brilliant career. There was the Bryzgalov signing and the Lecavalier signing and so on.
Then Sam Hinkie came to town with a plan. Hinkie was going to lose and take the heat. In fact, he was going to lose as well as any team could lose, knowing that losing would lead to talent for future success. Bringing that losing plan to Philadelphia took major stones. In the end, it worked. The Sixers look built for future success. Because of this, Hinkie has changed the landscape of Philadelphia sports.
Because of Hinkie, Hextall can lose and remain steady. Because of Hinkie, the pressure on Hextall will be from a small group of diehards instead of the masses. We don’t need him or want him trading any of the Flyers defensive prospects for an aging veteran. Because of Hinkie, the Flyers being barely a playoff team is okay with the team’s fans so long as they have a plan for the future. We trust, for now, that Hextall has a plan. Hextall should kneel every night and thank the sports gods that Hinkie had the onions to show the passionate Philadelphia sports fans that sometimes you have to lose to win.
Keep the core and win….next year?