The ugly cap situation, then, is somewhat mitigated by the fact the Flyers do have some young players and prospects, and a high draft pick. But this is a team playing in a city where patience has never really been popular, where there hasn’t been a Cup won since 1975 and where spending to cover up mistakes in the pre-cap days used to provide answers that simply aren’t available in the cap era.

To get out of jail, Hextall’s No. 1 job has to be to clear up the cap problem, and that might take two or three years to do. Fortunately for him, the presence of other teams in the middle of long rebuilds like Toronto, Arizona, Buffalo and Carolina means there’s plenty of evidence out there that this is what the Flyers have to do.

-Damien Cox on the Philadelphia Flyers, more at Sportsnet.