Matt Read wasn't 24 hours removed from surgery on his right thumb, and already his general manager was delivering a demand. This was mid-June, the Flyers nearly two months into their summer vacation, and Ron Hextall was making it perfectly clear to Read: Maybe the soreness in his thumb last season and a nagging ankle problem in 2014-15 were the direct cause of the decline in a once-promising player's production. Maybe those injuries had limited him to 19 goals over 169 regular-season games. Maybe they were a legitimate excuse. But they weren't anymore.
Slideshow "We need more," Hextall told reporters then.