VOORHEES, N.J. — Ron Hextall knows this time of year.
The Flyers’ general manager appeared in 93 playoff games as a player, racked up 47 wins and even scored a goal when the orange and black beat the Capitals, 8-5, on April 11, 1989.
He also helped architect the 2012 Stanley Cup champion Kings as their assistant general manager. Los Angeles was the first and only No. 8 seed to ever win it all.
So you can understand why Hextall, with his 8-seeded Flyers, is confident heading into the best-of-seven first-round playoff series with top-seeded Washington, which starts Thursday (7 p.m./CSN) at the Verizon Center.
“We’re not satisfied,” Hextall said Sunday at the Barclays Center. “I think a lot of people were pretty excited when we made the playoffs. We made the playoffs — we haven’t won anything. I think our team going in, we feel like we want to win the first round of the playoffs.”
Hextall touched on the playoffs, trade deadline, rebuild and more. Here’s what he had to say:
8-seed upsets
As noted above, you don’t have to apprise Hextall of the history.
“Oh, it can be done,” Hextall said. “We’re an underdog, we know that.”
The Captials are loaded and hungry after recent postseason failure (see story).
“They’re the best team in the league,” Hextall. “We’ve got to play our game and you can’t look at seven games or four games, you’ve got to just look at the first game. Go into [Washington] and play the way we’re capable of playing and play the game the right way.”
Momentum drive
There’s the old adage, “Get hot at the right time.”
Hextall doesn’t totally buy it. There’s more to making a run than just playing well late in the season.
“Everybody says you want to be playing great going into the playoffs. But I don’t believe that’s the history,” Hextall said. “There are some teams that are for sure. There are other teams that are playing terrible and they snap around and, all of a sudden, first game they play great. So I don’t put a ton of stock in terms of going into the playoffs like that.”
The Flyers went 14-6-2 in their final 22 games to squeeze into the playoffs. Hextall pointed out that consistency over the course of a regular season is easier said than done.
“I would like our team to be a little bit more consistent but I think in an 82-game schedule, most hockey people say that about their team — it’s hard,” he said. “I like the way our team grinded, I like the way our team grinded when we weren’t playing well.
“I think we made some strides this year in terms of learning how to win.”
Nothing to lose?
Just because the Flyers are the No. 8 seed doesn’t mean they’re free of pressure.
At least that’s how Hextall feels.
“You go into the playoffs, there is pressure because you want to win,” he said.
“So there is pressure. Not as much as a No. 1 seed or Chicago, who won last year. There’s not that type, but we’ll feel pressure. It’s going to be a great experience and we need to play the game the right way more than ever against a team like Washington.”
Deadline decisions
The Feb. 29 NHL trade deadline came and went.
Hextall never made a peep.
“We didn’t make moves at the deadline because we felt like we had a shot to get in,” Hextall said. “In saying that, if we could have made the right move at the deadline, we would have. We weren’t going to add. I felt like if we were going to get in, we were going to get in with what we were. I’m not a big fan of adding a player just to get into the playoffs.”
Claude Giroux felt Hextall’s decision to keep the Flyers intact was a turning point of the season.
“When Ron Hextall didn’t make any trades at the trade deadline, I think we got pretty close as a team and we set ourselves some goals,” he said after the playoff-clinching win over the Penguins. “And we were able to make it. We just got our first goal and we have to set ourselves a couple goals here to move on.”
Steve Mason realized it, too.
“It was definitely a moment of, ‘This is the group. Nobody’s coming in, nobody’s going out,’” Mason said. “He’s put the ball in our court and I think the guys responded well to it.”
Sticking to the plan
The Flyers are in the playoffs. But the rebuild is still on.
“We’re still not going to get off course,” Hextall said. “The course has been set, no matter what happens, we’re staying on course. I think two years, we’ve probably proven that now.”
It’s clear Hextall values the draft and stockpiling young talent.
“There was no way we were giving up a draft pick at the deadline, even if it was a seventh-round pick, it just wasn’t happening,” he said. “We set the course and we’re staying on course.”
Are the Flyers further along than anticipated?
“I guess maybe the feeling is that we made the playoffs so we think we’re our ahead of where we are?” Hextall said. “No, we don’t think we’re ahead of where we are. I think we knew going in if we played well and things went the right way, we had a shot at making the playoffs. Those were all of our feelings from the start.
“As I said when I took the job, we want to win the Stanley Cup. We don’t just want to make the playoffs, we want to win the Stanley Cup. And to do that you’ve got to build for years to give yourself multiple shots. That’s still where we’re headed and we’re not changing.”