The following transcript is courtesy of the Philadelphia Flyers media department...
Philadelphia Flyers President & General Manager Chuck Fletcher and Vice President & Assistant General Manager Brent Flahr
How difficult was it? Or is it to put together this expansion protected list? What did you learn from the Vegas draft when you're with Minnesota? And how would have any effect at all on how you approach this draft with Seattle?
CF: First of all, I think we have our Expansion Draft list put together. If we make moves between now and then, we can adjust it obviously, but we have a pretty good idea of what we want to do and who we're going to protect and who will make available. For this Expansion Draft, we had more time than we did versus the Vegas draft. More time to make sure we had all the holes filled and we met all the criteria that we needed to meet. From that standpoint, it's been a little simpler. The pandemic and the flat cap have made it probably more difficult because obviously, there's cap pressures on teams. So Seattle will certainly have an opportunity there to talk to teams about helping them out with their cap issues in exchange for various assets. We'll see how that plays out. Seattle, I'm sure, will have good options. They've worked hard, but I think we had a little bit more time to plan for this one. We feel like we're in good shape.
Is there anything that you learned from the Vegas expansion draft that would affect you in your decisions this time?
CF: No, not necessarily. Every situation is different. Our team in Minnesota was a lot different than the team here in terms of the makeup and the composition of the players. I think your goal is always to do the best thing for the organization. And in our case here now, I think our decisions, we had pretty good unanimity of what we wanted to do when we had our pro scouts in town. I think it's a process that may be a little bit more experienced, but we had more time to prepare. Again, I think our list is pretty straightforward.
You mentioned about the protection and asset trades. Do you think it's likely that you might look to work out a side deal with them to steer them in a specific direction? Are you more leaning towards just submitting your list and letting them pick and choose with you leave available?
CF: I'm open to either. I've had several conversations with Ron going back a few months now. We'll probably take guidance from them if there's something that they think would make sense for them and would make sense for us. My expectation is we’ll submit the list and if whether there'll be conversations after we submit the list or not, time will tell. We're certainly comfortable to submitting the list and having them select a player. I've just indicated to them if they have ideas on something else they want to accomplish to let us know.
What is the chatter for you and other GMs? Unless you're talking to Ron Francis, there's not a lot going on kind of right now. He's anticipating waiting till the Expansion Draft for stuff to happen. Is that a fair read on what's going on right now?
CF: Probably every team is different. Certainly, the phones have been busy. I've been receiving calls. I've been making calls. We're all speaking with each other. Every team's in a little bit different spot. For some teams, they can acquire a player now, and it doesn't impact their lists that much. There’s other teams that would much rather wait until after the Expansion Draft to make a trade to upgrade their clubs. I think everybody's different. It seems like more teams would prefer to wait until after Seattle makes their decisions. But there is a lot of dialogue. Teams are, I think, trying to get a read of the room right now and see who's available, what other teams are trying to do and what options we all may have once we get closer to the draft and free agency. So a lot of chatter. From our standpoint, we certainly aren't going to be making a trade today or tomorrow, unless something unexpected breaks right now.
Have you informed the players that you are exposing in the expansion draft? Is that an awkward conversation or is that business as usual?
CF: I haven't officially have informed them. I've had conversations with a few of them. Several conversations with a couple of them about the likelihood of it, about what we're trying to do and why. As we get closer to Saturday, whether it's Friday or Saturday, I will reach out to some of the players for sure to give them a courtesy heads up. Things could still change, so I don't want to jump the gun too much. I think a few of them are aware of what our position is, and we've had good conversations.
How are you looking at these next few weeks? Is it more crunch time for being proactive for major moves or are you looking at it as you have a long time until rosters are submitted?
CF: This summer to me is similar to every summer, every offseason. The goal is to try to be as competitive as we can next year and yet, we want to make sure we keep a large quantity of future assets that can continue to help us get better as we move forward. We're looking at everything. It's an exciting time, in a sense that with the Seattle Expansion Draft, with the flat cap, you might see maybe a few more trades, a few more hockey trades throughout the week. The draft is always an exciting time. We're picking higher than where we want to pick yet having the 13th selection will give us an opportunity to get a pretty good player. There's going to be hopefully some exciting additions to our club over the next couple months. And probably a few moves around the league that you normally wouldn't see because of expansion and because of the flat cap. We're going to continue to try to make moves and make us better. We know we have a lot of work ahead of us. And we'll do the best we can.
When you look at the draft this year, you have two very highly rated goaltenders. Do you see that potentially playing into who you might be picking as best available player?
BF: It's going to be a really interesting draft, I think. It's probably been written about the top eight or nine guys. Teams will have them in different orders, but it's probably going to be the same names. What you're going to see is it goes all over the board. I think there's a number of players that probably media outlets and whatnot have not seen a lot of, but teams have done their homework on certain players. Some players haven't played at all this year, which is unique for us and for everybody. You're going to see some variances as the draft expands. It’ll be interesting to see how it works. We're going to be working up right through next week to finalize everything and tighten everything up, but it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
You have some players that have big contracts. Does that make it easier for you to not protect them in the expansion draft?
CF: I think right now with the flat cap, it's difficult to move players with high salaries in general. I don't know if it makes it easier for the list or not. Ultimately, Seattle's coming in with zero cap dollars, so certainly, they have the ability to add good players, regardless of contract if they choose. I think you're always trying to make decisions where you're protecting the players you feel you need to protect for the short and long term good of your franchise. I think, generally speaking, in this environment, it goes without saying that it's difficult to move money right now and cheaper contracts are probably more valuable in that sense.
Is your number one draft pick in play for a trade or do you plan on keeping it?
BF: Depends on who you ask.
CF: Yeah, Brent wants me to keep it. Look, it's a really good asset. If we use our first round pick to select a player, we're obviously going to be able to draft a high quality player that'll help us. Yet, because it's of high asset value, I think we have to explore what we can do with it. The likelihood is you normally end up keeping your first round picks, but this offseason, in particular, I think I'm more willing to look at moving it. If there's some way we can help our team, not just in the short term, but more over several years over the longer term and it cost me the first round pick, if I can get that type of asset, I'll certainly look at doing it.
Going back to March with regards to the blueline corps, you thought the makeup wasn’t right and you needed to address that. Does that still remain a top priority for you after talking to the coaches and staff in your offseason meetings?
CF: I think there's been a lot of focus on the blue line. To me, the number one priority is our goals-against. It was just ridiculous how many goals we gave up last year. That goes back to everything. It goes back to the coaches having a great training camp and using the practice time early in the season to reinforce our systems and our structure. It's our goaltenders playing better. It's our defenseman playing better. It's our forwards managing the puck better. We're going to need to look at upgrades to our roster. There's no question. We're also going to need the players that are returning to play better, in particular, without the puck and structurally. We’re going to need our coaches to get our players back in that structure and reinforce the system. It's not just one thing that led us to fall from seventh in the league defensively to the bottom of the pile. You have no chance, no chance to win in this league unless you're at least in the top half of the league defensively. We have a lot of work to do. Again, we have holes we need to fill and we have players that are currently on our roster that need to play much better. It's got to be a holistic approach. It's not just one player that's going to turn it around. It's everybody, starting with me that has to be much better this year and that has been conveyed to everybody in the organization.
You mentioned the pandemic very briefly. Does that factor into your decision? You had a lot of younger players who didn't play as well this season. Does that factor into your evaluation, the pandemic and all the challenges that brought this year?
CF: It's a bit. It's hard to say for sure what caused some of our young players not to play at the same level. The pandemic would be one logical reason. Maybe expectations for some of them coming off a strong year and just assuming you'd be able to come back and do the same thing. I do think it's certainly is a reason to give pause. Some of our young players, at least in my opinion, are better than how they performed last year. I think you need to be a little bit careful overreacting to one year, particularly in one year, as crazy as last year was. We know they have to be better and we have to be better. I think we just want to be a little bit careful here. We've worked hard as an organization for the last seven, eight years to patiently add and draft and develop a lot of young players. It's kind of been the focus of the franchise, going back to 2014 probably. You got to be a little bit careful that you don't change course and start moving by good young players that maybe struggled for a little bit last year. We have to find a way to make them better. We have to get better and we'll work very hard at that. We'll probably get into this later on in the summer, but we’ve spent an awful lot of time this summer looking at our staff, our structure. I think we've made some really meaningful changes and improvements to how we do things, not just from a coaching standpoint, but from a development standpoint, a scouting standpoint, and a data standpoint. We put a lot of time and effort this summer and fixing some things off the ice that we think will lead to better on ice results. We've looked at everything. Last year was unacceptable. It's been a busy offseason behind the scenes and I'm really happy with some of the moves we made. Now we have to find a way to get better on the ice and that'll be the focus from here on out.
Have you zeroed in on candidates for your assistant position on the big club and the two assistants down on Lehigh Valley?
CF: Yeah, we've made a lot of personnel moves that we'll announce in short order. We've spent two months doing this stuff, so we will have a lot of changes to announce here in the new in the near future. We've worked pretty hard to that. I think we're in pretty good position going forward.
Is there a certain type of elite player that you consider moving that 13th pick? Is there a certain type of elite play or a certain position that you're focused on, if a player of one position comes up that you consider or moving for our other areas of need that you would consider, and it has to be in a certain elite type of player?
CF: Well, I think the second part of it would be the more important part. You know, if you're going to move the 13th overall pick, either by itself or as part of the package, you better be getting a really good player that can help you for a few years. I'm not sure that it has to be position specific. Certainly you want to make sure you're getting a good player that can help you in the short and long term.
With regards to Cam York, what difference did you notice after his second year of college? In general, what does that second year of college do to benefit the prospect?
BF: First of all, every player is different, especially coming up after you draft them, both physical maturity and mental maturity. Obviously staying in college for an extra year is beneficial in a lot of cases. Some players are ready after their freshman year but playing another year of college never hurts. I think in Cam's case in particular, allowed him to grow physically. He got invaluable experience coming in playing some games in American League, getting his feet wet in the NHL at the end of the year to see where he needs to get to physically to see how playing in the NHL every day works. Cam is obviously a very intelligent player. His skill set is very good. Knowing now for him to what he needs to do this offseason to get ready for this year really helped him and he’s prepared for his offseason here.
How would you categorize this draft overall? In the past, you have gone for the next best player available. Is that still the strategy this year?
BF: Well, first of all this draft, I think it's been well publicized. I don't think there's any generational players in it. However, there are some quality players at the top end and there is some depth to the draft. There are some different tiers like every year. Our group has done a pretty good job identifying those, but I do think there's some depth through the second and third round this year that our guys are excited about and even beyond. We'll continue to work through that this next week and be ready for next Friday. And then as far as the strengths of the draft, I think there's some quality defenseman at the top of the draft. There's some quality centerman. There's wingers. It's publicized that there's a couple goalies that'll likely get into the first round here. Should be an interesting and we'll see how it plays out.
With the presence of Carter in the organization, does it make it less likely to pick a goalie in the first round?
BF: We have Carter. Obviously, he's a young goaltender and we have a couple goalies outside the NHL that we feel have a chance as good prospects. It's the next best player on our board and we’ll certainly consider it and take them. At the same time, we have a number of different players and positions that we'll look at as well. But no, we're not opposed. If it's clearly the next best player on our draft board, we'll take them. And to the question earlier, as far as position, we don't really draft by position, especially in the first round. We go by our list, the best player available. Realistically, as you've seen in the NHL, a lot of these players don't play next year. Sometimes our needs right now are changed by two years down the road. That's just a reality we're in.
With a trade like the Duncan Keith trade yesterday, is there almost a trickle down effect? Is there almost an innate pressure to get the ball-rolling after the first big move of the offseason?
CF: I think that move is probably a little bit different. I think the player had reasons for wanting to go and there were certain teams he would go to. Two teams were able to make a trade. I don't know if it's as much that. I think it's just the timing of everything. Between the Expansion Draft, the Entry Draft following that a few days later and then start a free agency, we have all the big events that may involve player movement really happening within literally a 10- or 12-day period. Once you get past the first day of free agency, the amount of players that are available and the amount of cap space that's available probably be much more limited. I think either there's pressure in the sense that if you have moves you want to make, this is when you got to try to make them. Having said all that, this type of environment where there's not a lot of liquidity in the system, it's a flat cap system, moves are a little trickier, in part because the Expansion Draft. There's not a lot of teams that are just able to take on a lot of money. There's a lot more communication about dollar for dollar type of moves, or can you take some money back or can you do this. It makes it a little bit more complicated. In saying that, over the next two weeks, my guess is the majority of player movement that happens this summer will take place.
One thing you talked about in your postseason press conference was the importance of workouts, training in the offseason, the struggles that some guys had with the challenge of the pandemic last offseason. What are you guys doing to ensure that doesn't happen again? Are guys going to be coming back to Philly earlier to make sure that they don't run into the same issues again?
CF: In terms of the first part of the question, we have our strength coaches. They worked with the players before they left in terms of the summer program they'll follow. Most of our players have trainers that they train with during the offseason. It seems to be a fact of life now for most pro athletes. This summer obviously, gyms are open and trainers are able to train the players in person where last offseason was maybe a little bit more problematic in some locations. The players have a good idea of what's expected of them. Our strength coaches stay in touch with them. Our team nutritionist has reached out to them. We stay in contact with them regularly through the summer. And as the summer moves on, our coaches will follow up with them. There's a lot of follow up and these guys are professionals. They know what they need to do. They will work hard. I think it'll be easier for every athlete, not just our players to have access to ice rinks, gyms and everything that maybe in the previous offseason was more limited. There's a pretty good plan in place for that. In terms of guys coming back early, that's really up to them. I know some of the players. Shayne Gostisbehere is obviously here. Provorov has been here for a while and then he just went back home. We'll have some players that will come in as the summer moves on and and train here, but that's really up to them. My expectation is by Labor Day, we'll have a lot of people here in terms of our veteran players. Typically, it's pretty quiet around here in July for the veteran players.
Is there any progress made in your negotiations with the RFAs, specifically Carter Hart, Nolan Patrick and Travis Sanheim? Also, have you talked about re-signing UFAs, such as Sam Morin, Brian Elliott, and Alex Lyon?
CF: I don't know that I really want to get into updates on signings. I usually try to keep that stuff pretty quiet. I will say that with the RFAs, it hasn't been a front burner issue. There's plenty of time to get to those. We have to make the qualifying offers by the Monday after the draft. We'll make those sometime between now and then. Typically, the ball gets rolling from there. I've had some preliminary talks with a few of the guys you've mentioned, but at this point, we have time and we'll get to those in due course.
I don’t know if you saw the damage that the Stanley Cup took yesterday. Did you ever worry about damaging the Stanley Cup when you won it in ’09 with the Penguins or back with your dad in ’89?
CF: I know the tradition of everybody getting the Cup for a day wasn't enforced back in ‘89. I remember we did have the Cup. My dad brought it to a couple local hospitals. We had a friend that was in a hospital at the time, so I remember bringing the Cup there. Certainly, there weren't a lot of shenanigans with the Cup back then. I've heard various stories over the years, but I don't have any recollections of doing that. Certainly looked like they had a lot of fun yesterday.
---End of transcript.
