The Florida Panthers clinched their third consecutive Eastern Conference championship on Wednesday night. Florida dismantled a very good Carolina Hurricanes team in five games. It remains to be seen if Paul Maurice’s team can get past the Edmonton Oilers or Dallas Stars to win their second straight Stanley Cup.
Nevertheless, it is worth looking back to November and December of 2018. The Flyers had recently dismissed Ron Hextall as general manager. The search for a new GM came down was quickly narrowed down a short list of candidates. From the get-go, Chuck Fletcher was the favorite. However, former Columbus Blue Jackets assistant general manager (and longtime player agent) Bill Zito emerged as a strong alternate candidate.
When the Flyers interviewed Zito, the candidate presented a detailed prospectus of what he wanted to accomplish in his first 90 days if hired, as well as a longer-range plan for the next offseason, Fletcher, of course, got the job.
I will say this about Chuck Fletcher. He is a very nice man. He treated the local media well when he was made available, and was always helpful to me personally. He also had some horrid luck (Oskar Lindblom’s cancer bout, Nolan Patrick and Ryan Ellis having career-ending health/injuries issues that were unrelated to any of their previous injury concerns). Fletcher also made his share of mistakes. Perhaps the biggest ones were ill-fated attempts to recreate the 2019-20 season.
There is no guarantee that, if the Flyers hired Zito instead of Fletcher, that the Flyers of the 2020s would have had a success level that matched what Zito has done in Florida. That said, however, it’s not hard to imagine that the Flyers would have been in a better place. Yes, Zito inherited players such as Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad. On the other hand, the GM found under-the-radar players such as Carter Verhaeghe. He also made bold trades for Claude Giroux (giving up Owen Tippett and a first-round pick) and, later Matthew Tkachuk.
However, the Verhaeghe acquition is the type upon which Zito built his reputation. As an agent, he specialized in finding under-the-radar pros (often ones playing in Finland) to represent.Some of his earliest clients include pre-NHL undrafted or late-round picks including Tim Thomas, Brian Rafalski, Kimmo Timonen and Ville Leino.
At any rate, with Florida now celebrating its third straight Eastern Conference championship, it’s hard not to play the “what if” game. What would Daniel Briere be doing now? Would Keith Jones have left the broadcast booth for the Flyers’ president of hockey ops role? Would Brent Flahr (a close associate of Fletcher) or someone else be in charge of the amateur Draft process for the Flyers?
Memorial Cup semis set
The Ontario Hockey League champion London Knights will play the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League champion Moncton Wildcats on Friday in the 2025 Memorial Cup semifinal game. The winner will face off on Sunday for the Memorial Cup championship against the Western Hockey League champion Medicine Hat Tigers. Medicine Hat went 3-0-0 during the round-robin phase.
