When the Flyers announced that they had re-signed Garnet Hathaway to a two-year contract extension just a few hours after the opening of free agency on July 1, a mere blink of an eye after the official signing window opened and with still a full season remaining on his first two-year deal signed last summer, many fans seemed to be surprised by the move. After all, with the Flyers still firmly in their rebuilding period, it seemed a bit curious to lock themselves in with a veteran depth player for three more years when, well, who knows what anything around here is going to look like in three years.
Photo credit: Heather Barry
But for Hathaway, this move to stick around for a while longer was a no-brainer. “I want to be in Philly,” he said, pretty succinctly, when speaking to the media about the extension on Monday, “When it came down to it, this is where I want to be, this is where I want to play. And I had a great year to get introduced to the team, to the players, and it made sense to me and my family [and we] are really happy.”
For Hathaway, the organization has clearly made a strong, positive impression, and he noted that this came from the top down, was quite broadly reaching:
“I think even more than I knew last year, and I know now how high end of an organization this is from top to bottom. Dan Hilferty, our ownership, our front office, to the coaching staff, to the medical guys, to the equipment managers, and then the guys in the room, it’s one that I just really want to be around. And you can see it. You know, I’ve talked about it before but you can see that striving for more, just that attitude that no one’s satisfied with overachieving like people said we did last year, planting that step to be more successful the next day, and that’s something that I want to be a part of. “
Things have been difficult around the Flyers organization for a while, but the sense is that things are finally beginning to come together for them, and that they’re beginning to see the work that they’ve been putting in — both on the player level on the ice, but also from the management group — is paying off. There’s still a lot of work to be done, to be sure, but the excitement is palpable, the next step is in sight, and players want to see this thing through, to be around when the team hits their next gear, their next level of success.
And wrapped up in Hathaway’s effusive praise for the organization, his clear and strong desire to stick around for as long as he can (a sentiment shared by Erik Johnson after his re-signing as well) is a lesson on where the Flyers stand in their rebuild on the macro level. The team they’re putting together, their play on the ice, is trending up, to be sure, but so too are the optics around the organization as a whole. We’ve all seen the tired old narrative that free agents don’t want to come to Philadelphia, players think this place is awful or a joke, but player enthusiasm like this should be a clear point to how untrue that is. The Flyers have to put in work to make themselves an absolute top destination for players, but they’re well on their way to pulling it off.
