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Philadelphia Flyers: Ron Hextall’s GM draft grades

By Kevin Lagowski

PHILADELPHIA, PA - JUNE 27: Ron Hextall, General Manager of the Philadelphia Flyers (C), looks on prior the first round of the 2014 NHL Draft at the Wells Fargo Center on June 27, 2014 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA, PA - JUNE 27: Ron Hextall, General Manager of the Philadelphia Flyers (C), looks on prior the first round of the 2014 NHL Draft at the Wells Fargo Center on June 27, 2014 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /
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Philadelphia Flyers
(Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images) /

2014

The picks: Travis Sanheim (17th overall), Nicolas Aube-Kubel (48th), Mark Friedman (86th), Oskar Lindblom (138th), Radel Fazleev (168th), Jesper Pettersson (198th)

For as much as Sanheim seems to get dumped on nowadays, he wasn’t a bad pick. No, it doesn’t seem like he’ll ever develop into a top pair D-man, but he is basically the poster boy for what $5 million per season gets you in a defenseman in today’s NHL. We’ll see if he remains in town after this season or not. People will ding the Flyers for passing on David Pastrnak, but so did 23 other teams in the first round that year. Get over it.

Lindblom, despite his recent struggles, still qualifies as a steal based on his draft position. Let’s hope he can regain his pre-illness form at some point. Everyone is still pulling for him.

NAK and Friedman are interesting cases of NHL-caliber depth players who just wore out their welcome in Philadelphia for some reason. Very disappointing for a pair of top-100 picks. The last two players the Flyers drafted in 2014 unsurprisingly flamed out before returning to Europe.

Grade: B-

It wasn’t a terrible start for the Hextall regime, as the Flyers have a top-4 blueliner and a (maybe) middle-6 forward to show for it seven years later.

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