Why Dave Hakstol won’t have to worry about this year

After back-to-back wins for only the second time this season, rookie Flyers coach Dave Hakstol was in a good mood.

Following Saturday’s 3-0 win over the New York Rangers, he even smiled. His teeth were showing and everything.

Usually stone-faced postgame, after victory or defeat, the confident first-year NHL coach couldn’t help himself. It’s been that kind of year. Reasons to smile have been hard to come by.

“Our team has done a real good job of sticking together through thick and thin over the last few weeks,” Hakstol said.

Even after four points in less than 24 hours, the Flyers are only three points from the basement of the Metropolitan Division. Losing six in a row at one point and five out of six in a different stretch will do that.

Amid all that, Hakstol likely has no reason to worry about yet another slow start to the season. There’s a strong argument that when he was hired out of the University of North Dakota, he wasn’t brought here to coach this year’s team as much as he was to coach the team three years from now.

“It was one of the attractive things, that Dave has coached an age group from really 18 to 24, 25,” general manager Ron Hextall said back in May when he hired Hakstol. “That was one of the things you think about, yes. We have a lot of young players on our team, but we also have a number coming, so that was a factor for sure – how has Dave developed young players, how has he integrated young players into his lineup, how you bring players together.”

Everyone in the Flyers’ front office and in the locker room said the right things at the beginning of the season. They claimed they were a playoff team, but it’s increasingly looking like that won’t be the case unless this weekend’s pair of wins sparks an epic winning streak.

There probably isn’t a lot of surprise about the Flyers’ place in the standings from those in the front office. The excitement around Hakstol, whose contract is reported to be five years in length, is more to coach players like 2015 first-round picks Ivan Provorov or Travis Konecny or 2014 first-rounder Travis Sanheim or 2013 top pick Sam Morin.

The biggest risk the Flyers are taking, if that is the case, is whether the team’s current core – including starting goalie Steve Mason – will be past their primes by the time those youngsters are ready.

At first, the narrative surrounding Hakstol from his 11-year tenure as head coach at North Dakota was his stern, no-nonsense attitude with the players, that he’d be a disciplinarian above all else. While the players say that might be taking it a bit too far, clearly he is here more to direct the future and the youngsters coming up the pipeline for the Flyers than those even on this year’s team.

“He’s really calm and when he sees a problem or something that needs to get better, he doesn’t jump to conclusions,” captain Claude Giroux said. “He really sits down and thinks about it and goes over it and then he comes back to us. I think that brings a lot of calmness to the team.”

Giving young players the feeling that their opinions matter, even if they’re rookies in the NHL, can be important toward how much the player buy’s into the coach’s system.

“I just came into camp and knew it was a new coach so I wanted to make a good impression,” said rookie center Nick Cousins, who was recalled Friday. “I didn’t know him from before. I just tried to make a good impression. Whoever is coaching, that’s what I want to do, have him trust me when I’m on the ice. That’s basically what I’m trying to do here.”

Hakstol came here to build something, kind of like Brett Brown did for the 76ers. The Flyers are hoping their turnaround doesn’t take quite as long. Pressure is already building after missing the playoffs twice in three years for the first time since the early ‘90s.

Sixers general manager Sam Hinkie said back in 2013 when he hired Brown that he was looking for a special coach, “one who had a passion for developing talent, a strong work ethic to help create the kind of culture we hope for, and a desire to continually improve.”

Sound familiar?

Even if the Flyers don’t make the playoffs this season, don’t expect a boisterous fan base to have an effect on whether he sticks around. Whether this season is a success or failure, keeping Hakstol around long-term is part of Hextall’s plan.

Dave Isaac; (856) 486-2479; disaac@gannettnj.com .