It was a bit of a surprising move midseason last year, but the Philadelphia Flyers decided to part ways with general manager Ron Hextall. Hextall of course did a great job of stockpiling prospects and keeping a borderline playoff team together, but to the ownership group those prospects meant nothing. The one prospect they did like was Carter Hart and Hextall refused to bring him up. All that eventually led to his firing and some people added that Hextall was fired because he only worked with a small inner circle. However Michael Russo of The Athletic hints that it was a bit deeper than that. Of course we all know Paul Holmgren is a bit of a control freak and just won't go away keeping his hand involved in everything. According to Russo, Hextall was trying to remove the "country club" atmosphere in the Flyers organization and that obviously rubbed some people the wrong way. Removing that "country club" atmosphere would have obviously meant keeping Holmgren as far away as possible, something we all know Holmgren isn't willing to do. "There were rumors of unhappy staff in Philly and Hextall only relying on a small inner circle, but I will say I've done a lot of due diligence into this myself and I think some of the stuff he was criticized for can be easily explained and rationalized if Hextall was ever willing to open the vault. I think it was more Hextall and the old guard having issues and Hextall trying to rid the Flyers of a country club atmosphere." Hextall remains a top candidate for the Minnesota Wild GM job.