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This Dale Weise Flyers Story is the Saddest Shit Ever
Published:
Siobhan Nolan at Yahoo Sports Canada:
It’s the middle of August, hockey news is scarce, and apparently former Philadelphia Flyers forward Dale Weise decided now was the time to stir the pot.
Weise—probably best remembered for being a puzzling signing during Ron Hextall’s not-so-fondly remembered tenure—took some surprising shots at Claude Giroux and Jake Voracek on the Slangin’ the Bizkit podcast this week.
“I went to Philly and…within weeks, I was like, ‘Man, no wonder this team hasn’t won,’” Weise said. “You could just feel the difference. Two guys leading the charge…there were, you know, Claude Giroux, Jake Voracek, who were tremendous players…but not guys that were, in my opinion, really bringing the team together, really wanting to win.”
This is some of the saddest shit ever. Dale Weise? That dude had 15 points during his best Flyers season and was waived with a $2.35 million cap hit. Part of the reason the Flyers didn’t win anything during that era is because Ron Hextall was signing guys like Dale Weise.
On the other hand, he may not be wrong. Maybe Giroux and Voracek weren’t great leaders, or motivated individuals. But even then, how much of a difference would that have made? Everybody knows the Flyers just weren’t good enough back then. The best team that Weise played on was the 2017-2018 squad, which had Giroux, Voracek, Coots, Ghost, and a young Travis Konecny. Wayne Simmonds was still a 45 point player and Provy was decent. But you go down the list and beyond that it was guys like Nolan Patrick, Andrew MacDonald, Valtteri Filppula, and Jordan Weal. They had Brian Elliott, Michal Neuvirth, Petr Mrazek, and Alex Lyon in goal. Dave Hakstol was a bang-average coach and Hextall turned out to be a bang-average GM. Those Flyers teams showed some regular-season flashes, but they weren’t Cup contenders. Giroux and Voracek could have gone to the Winston Churchill school of leadership and it wouldn’t have mattered because the talent just wasn’t that great.
Here’s a longer clip of Weise elaborating:
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Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com