Ron Hextall 'allegedly' refused a trade as the GM of the Flyers that could have been a STEAL today

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Ryan
August 10, 2022 (4:33 PM)

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Since Ron Hextall was fired from the Philadelphia Flyers, rumours having been coming out of poor decisions he made with drafting, developing and trades.

One of the more recent pieces of news that came out was that the entire Flyers scouting staff wanted the Flyers to select Cale Makar with the 2nd overall pick in 2017, but Hextall was fixed on Nolan Patrick, which we are now seeing Cale Makar become a top 5-10 player in the league, while Nolan Patrick has yet to play a full season in the NHL or score more than 31 points due to injury. Add a little insult to injury here, Nolan Patrick's best career point season is 31 points, and DEFENCEMAN Cale Makar had 28 goals this season, let that sink in.

Now here is another one that stings a little a few seasons later. According to NHL Benchside on Instagram, back in 2014, the Flyers were offered a deal from the Florida Panthers offering the first overall pick, and Hextall turned it down because the Panthers wanted one specific player that Hextall refused to give, check out below who that was.

That's right, Hextall refused the 1st overall pick which turned into franchise defenceman Aaron Ekblad, because he wanted to hold onto Wayne Simmonds. While it is important to note that during this time, Simmonds was in the prime of his career and was the perfect power-forward scoring 20-30 goals and 50-60 points, while putting up 100+ penalty minutes. He was that player that everyone wanted and everyone hated playing against, so he was a very valuable asset to the Philadelphia Flyers. But looking at it 10 years later, Simmonds at the age of 33 is now a 4th line player, while Ekblad is one of the best defencemen in the NHL, so this must sting a little.