Thanks for nothing, Dave Hakstol
If you didn’t already dislike Dave Hakstol the coach as a Flyers fan at this point, the former Flyers gum-chewing bench boss and avid wakeboarder, made sure to nail that down into the coffin today against the Winnipeg Jets.
We all know who “Hak” is. He led our beloved Philadelphia Flyers from 2016 to 2019 with a record of 134-101-42 in 277 games. He’s notorious for falling in love with actual traffic cones in Brandon Manning, Jori Lehtera, and a multitude of other players. During his last hurrah in Philly, he sat Oskar Lindblom for Lehtera in one of the most comical moves I’ve ever seen an NHL coach make.
Today, in the last game of the regular season for the NHL, Hakstol and his Seattle Kraken held a 3-1 lead over the Winnipeg Jets going into the 3rd period. We were twenty minutes away from Seattle jumping over the Flyers as the NHL’s 4th worst team, letting the boys in the orange and black sneak into 3rd place in the NHL’s basement. 3rd place would’ve given the Flyers the third-best lottery odds (11.5%) and locked up top five in the draft.
In extreme Dave Hakstol fashion, and one more “F*** you” to the city of Philadelphia, Seattle completely fell apart in the last stanza and genuinely looked like a QMJHL team out there. Elliot Desnoyers and his Halifax Moosehead’s probably would’ve had a pretty decent shot at beating this team.
Now, the Flyers will finish the season with the 4th best odds (9.5%) at the draft lottery and will only be able to drop back two spots when the drawing happens on May 10th. Let us look at the six best prospects heading into July’s draft:
- Shane Wright (C)
- Juraj Slafkovsky (W)
- Simon Nemec (D)
- Logan Cooley (C)
- Matthew Savoie (C)
- Joakim Kemell (RW)
You can switch this order up after Shane Wright at #1 and have a pretty good case in doing so, but for me, these are my top six prospects.
Simon Nemec finished his playoffs in the Slovak league with 5G-11A-16P in 19 playoff games for Nitra MHC. The 16 points are the most ever by a defender in league history, an absolutely amazing accomplishment for an 18-year-old kid playing with grown men.
Logan Cooley is a dynamic center out of the U.S National Development team, a program the Flyers are very familiar with (Joel Farabee, Bobby Brink, & Cam York). The only reason he’s not infront of Nemec for me is because of the fact that Nemec is a right-handed shot and they’re quite literally gold in the NHL. It’s not easy to just come across a potential Top 2/Top 4 right-handed defenseman in this league, teams covet them (as they should).
Juraj Slafkosvky has risen up scout’s draft boards all year. 6’4 218 pound winger that has the best shot in the draft behind Shane Wright, Slafkosvky is a really intriguing player that a lot of teams are going to be interested in. He scored 3G-6A-9P in 5 games in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup for the Slovakia U18 team.
Even if the Flyers end up getting screwed and drop back two spots to #6, they’re still going to get a pretty good player. After about #9-10, there’s a steep drop-off in terms of talent in this draft so the Flyers having a top-six pick locked up is a win in my book (haven’t been able to say that at all this year).
I just wanted to come on here and express my dislike for Dave Hasktol the coach one last time because he has found a way to screw Philadelphia over for (hopefully) the final time.
NHL draft lottery has officially been announced.
Cheers, Dave.
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