Breaking: The Flyers announce a shocking firing!

Holy crap the Philadelphia Flyers have just shocked the world. 

According to a breaking news report from the Flyers official website the team has fired general manager Ron Hextall after yet another disappointing start to the season for the organization. I do not believe that it is a coincidence that this comes fresh off the heels of a rather pathetic loss from the Flyers against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Air Canada Center over the week end. The shocking part however is that many had been calling for head coach Dave Hakstol to be fired, and not many expected the legendary Flyers general manager to be the one getting the axe on this day.

Flyers team President Paul Holmgren has released the following official statement via the Flyers website:

"The Flyers organization has decided to relieve Ron Hextall of his duties as Executive Vice President and General Manager. We thank Ron for his many significant contributions, but it has become clear that we no longer share the same philosophical approach concerning the direction of the team. In light of these differences, we feel it's in the organization's best interests to make a change, effective immediately. I have already begun a process to identify and select our next General Manager, which we hope to complete as soon as possible." 

First and foremost I have to point out that I, like many, believe that Paul Holmgren should never have been made President of the Flyers organization after his rather catastrophic tenure as general manager of the organization, but that is a conversation for another day. The fact that Hextall now finds himself without a job while head coach Dave Hakstol remains behind the bench however is a very curious move indeed. '

I have to assume that the motivating factor behind the decision to keep Hakstol has been the fact that he has had very little to work with behind the bench. It's all well and good to blame the coach but when your goaltending is so bad that your team needs to score 5 goals on any given night to have a chance at winning it's pretty difficult to coach around that.

Stay tuned we will be bringing you more details as the become available.