During a press conference with President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones, Philadelphia Flyers CEO Dan Hilferty acknowledged the sheer volume of off-ice adversity the organization faced, but saw the experience of navigating those issues as valuable instead of detrimental to the team's growth.
During a press conference with President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones, Philadelphia Flyers CEO Dan Hilferty acknowledged the sheer volume of off-ice adversity the organization faced, but saw the experience of navigating those issues as valuable instead of detrimental to the team's growth.
During a press conference with President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones, Philadelphia Flyers CEO Dan Hilferty acknowledged the sheer volume of off-ice adversity the organization faced, but saw the experience of navigating those issues as valuable instead of detrimental to the team's growth.
"When [Comcast chairman and CEO] Brian Roberts and I agreed that I would take this role, it was, “Oh by the way... Oh by the way," and you can name the things that we are facing as they kind of unearthed themselves as the season went on," Hilferty said.
The issues did seem to pop up in endless succession—from controversy surrounding various comments head coach John Tortorella made in press conferences, to starting goalie Carter Hart—along with four other professional hockey players—being arrested and charged with sexual assault, to highly-touted prospect Cutter Gauthier (who the Flyers drafted fifth overall in 2022) essentially ghosting the front office and forcing a trade that triggered a social media firestorm.
For a team that, by its own admission, is still very much in a rebuild, such a chaotic series of events with little time to breathe in between could've been a lethal blow to the plans to establish a "New Era of Orange." Instead, Hilferty said, it helped people on the hockey and business sides of the operation grow and strengthen the values they're trying to ingrain.
"We had frank conversations about it," he said. "We dialogued continuously between business and hockey. We understood the hockey ramifications of these various things. I will use the Drysdale trade as an example. When we became aware of this, these guys right away, we huddled and began to think about how we would go about it. We tried to do it in a way that, for obvious reasons, was as quiet as we could.
"They knew they wanted to get value, and we feel really good about the value that we got in Jamie Drysdale, but that was a challenge that I wasn't expecting, frankly. In this new role, it really solidified my feeling about these three individuals, particularly Jonesy and [Flyers GM] Danny [Briere]."
Hilferty highlighted that the lack of egos and willingness to have honest discussions to do what's best for the organization as the reasons why the Flyers were able to come out stronger on the other side of a physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting season.
"As Jonesy said, 'no ego,'" he reiterated. "Let's talk this through. Let's make sure we are aligned with the business side, that the business side is aligned with us, and do what we need to do. It actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise."
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