As somebody who has written about the Philadelphia Flyers regularly for nine years now, I sometimes feel like covering trade deadlines and drafts and free agency periods gives me a bout of whiplash.
Consider what these events were like under Paul Holmgren. They were franchise-altering nearly every time, be it a trade for Chris Pronger, or trades of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, or a Shea Weber offer sheet, or any other number of big moves.
But under Ron Hextall, that has dramatically changed — hence the whiplash. Sure, Hextall has made some big moves: a coaching change, he dumped the Pronger contract on the Coyotes, he dumped Zac Rinaldo on Boston.