Author: Jackie Spiegel

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Before we delve into his story, let’s set the record straight right away.

Yes, Jack Hextall is a distant cousin of former Flyers general manager and goalie Ron Hextall. No, according to Jack, they have never met. So while some may either embrace or bristle at the thought of another Hextall donning orange and black, their only connection is a shared last name.

For now. Because at the 2026 NHL draft, the center Jack Hextall may join the goalie Ron Hextall as a player drafted by the Flyers.

Beginnings

Jack Hextall grew up in the small northwest Chicago suburb of Rolling Meadows, Illinois, when his dad Cory — a native of Saskatchewan and Ron’s cousin — settled there after playing hockey at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

The father and son would shoot pucks together at a net in the garage. “We got to put some plywood up behind the net, because, actually, my dad shot a puck through the garage,” Jack said with a laugh, adding that the pair thought it was funny. His mom, Jennifer, however, did not agree.

But now that her son is about to be drafted into the NHL, and has a chance of eclipsing his uncle, Donevan Hextall, who was drafted 33rd overall in the second round of the 1991 NHL draft by the New Jersey Devils, maybe she’ll be OK with it. After all, it was all those pucks that have led to this point.

Jack is days away from hearing his name called.

“This opportunity is so exciting, and it’s a really cool opportunity,” Hextall told The Inquirer. “It only happens once, so just trying to do the best I can and enjoy it.”

Hextall interviewed with 25 teams at the NHL scouting combine, including the Flyers, before finishing in the top-25 of five fitness tests — including the right and left-handed grip tests, which have become a staple for Flyers draft picks of late. It’s a hefty number of teams for Hextall, but it makes sense as the 6-foot-½ inch, 195-pound right-shot centerman has built his game into that of a late first or early second-round pick.

And while they do have centers in the prospect pool, the Flyers do not shy away from drafting them. Flyers general manager Danny Brière has said: “I don’t feel like you can have too many centers, because it’s much easier to move a center to the wing.” But unlike some other centers in this draft class, and while he has played center and wing, Hextall’s ceiling is as a middle-six center at the NHL level.

“Just reliable in that 200-foot game,” he said, when asked what he brings down the middle. “Not every center is 200-foot, and takes pride in the defensive side of the puck, and it’s something I’ve always done. I think high hockey IQ as well, not a lot of people have that high hockey IQ, and I think I bring that, and I think that’s special.”

Hextall thinks he reads the game well and pays attention to the little details, which has caught others’ eye.

“I think he’s one of the guys that you look at and you think that’s a center in terms of the details,” The Athletic’s NHL draft and prospects reporter Scott Wheeler told The Inquirer. “His bread and butter is how well-rounded he is. The details off the puck, up-and-under sticks, retrievals, board battles, he’s got pro habits.

“If you talk to the guys in Youngstown [where Hextall played for the Phantoms of the United States Hockey League], the first thing they say about him is that he’s a pro; this isn’t a junior hockey player, like a lot of these kids are. [He] does everything the right way, no selfishness to his game and he doesn’t cheat for offense.”

Although he said it would be funny to go from the Youngstown Phantoms of the USHL to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the American Hockey League — as a pit stop to the NHL, of course — he is off to Michigan State this fall. Yes, it’s the same school Porter Martone attended, and the one Brière has continually, and perhaps notably, praised. Hextall’s pro days will have to wait.

But it is what he did this past year that has eyes on him right now.

Feelin’ Stronger Every Day

Ryan Ward has known Hextall since he was 13 years old. The two met when the now Youngstown coach was on the bench for the Windy City Storm, a program that has developed several NHLers, including fellow Illinois native and Flyers assistant coach Todd Reirden.

Skating for the Storm’s 13U AAA team, a Tier I program, Hextall notched 39 goals and 103 points in 58 games.

“I could have told you back then, and I think I’ve told him and his family this, but I could see right away when he played for me, I was like, this kid’s special,” Ward told The Inquirer.

“He was very serious; he wanted to know why we do things, he wanted to learn, he wanted to understand systems, he wanted to watch video, and a lot of 13-year-olds, they’re not interested in that, they play the game or whatever, and then they go home and eat McDonald’s,” Ward added.

“But Jack, he was always interested in watching his shifts with me, or watching film. You couldn’t give him enough, and he’s the same way now, like after every game we sit down and we watch clips, and that’s just who he is.”

It was a no-brainer for Ward when the option came to snag Hextall for the USHL. In his first season as a 16-year-old in a league that has an age range of 16-20, Hextall dropped eight goals and 34 points in 53 games. This past season, across 59 games, he more than doubled his goals (20) with 38 assists.

That came after he finished with seven points in five games, including three in the championship game against Sweden, for the gold-medal-winning U.S. side at the 2025 Hlinka Gretzky Cup. It was the first time the U.S. won the tournament since 2003.

“He’s a super smart player. He’s obviously a 200-foot center [which is] pretty hard to find nowadays,” said his linemate, Blake Zielinski, a Berlin, N.J., native who is expected to be drafted on Saturday.

“He just played the game so smart and so dynamically, and I think we just worked well together, being that I can shoot the puck, he can pass the puck. He sees the ice very well, and I think I see the guys pretty well, and so we connected a lot.”

Although some believe Hextall’s pace and speed need work — Martone did improve this at Michigan State — to drive plays and forecheck, he is considered a good skater. A self-proclaimed “railroad skater” when he was younger, he has worked on bringing his legs more underneath him, spending time each week in Youngstown with a power skating coach. It is that growth and development that pops for Ward, who sees a player who not only wants to get better and better but is getting better and better.

The Athletic’s senior NHL prospects writer Corey Pronman told The Inquirer that Hextall was one of the best players in the USHL this season and was arguably USA Hockey’s best forward at the Hlinka. He likes his competitiveness, his attention to detail, and his ability to win battles and make plays. Ward calls him a blue-collar player and likes that his “brain is off the charts.”

Guess who else likes these attributes in a player? The Flyers.

“Every time, if his team would lose a small area game, like, he’d be screaming at me that I was cheating for the other team,” said Ward. “He’s just so competitive, he hates to lose. … He’s a leader the moment he steps in the room. He’s going to do his thing, and he’s going to work hard, and he’s going to push people to get better, and that’s ultimately like you’re talking about the Philadelphia Flyers. That’s the type of person you want in the locker room.”

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Alexander Command sees a lot of parallels between himself, the city of Philadelphia, the Flyers, and their fans.

“I’ve heard that it’s where the communities, like the people, are pretty hard-working. They do right by themselves, take no [stuff], kind of like me,” the Swede said with a grin and a twinkle in his eye.

Called one of the most competitive players in this draft class by Elite Prospects, the just-under 6-foot-1, 187-pound center commands — pun slightly intended — attention whether he has the puck on his stick or not.

A confident player with a big personality, the recently turned 18-year-old is a self-described hard-working two-way center with a high hockey IQ and compete level who is not afraid to get to the dirty areas. Although other pivots in the draft class are not projected to play the position at the NHL level, no one doubts that Command will play down the middle in the middle-six.

And yes, the Flyers, who met with Command at the NHL scouting combine — he said they mentioned how much they liked how he plays the game — have drafted eight centers — not including Denver Barkey, who played some center this past season — in the last three drafts.

But Flyers general manager Danny Brière has said repeatedly he doesn’t think you can have too many centers in the system.

The only problem for the Flyers, a team he feels a close connection with, is that middle-six centers seldom linger on draft day. And with the consensus that every team has him high on their list, the chances of Command being there at 21 don’t look promising.

Preparatory commands

Christian and Joanna Command first got Alexander on skates at the age of 3 or 4 in the northern Stockholm suburb of Danderyd, Sweden. They brought him to a public ice rink not far from their home because “they thought it was common knowledge to learn how to skate on ice,” Alexander told The Inquirer at the scouting combine.

“I found it very fun, but when I started playing hockey, I loved it even more.”

It didn’t hurt that his friends were also playing in a municipality that has produced four NHL players, with Edmonton Oilers center Mattias Janmark and retired goalie Jonas Gustavsson having played the most.

At first, Command was a small, skilled player who relied on his skating. But as his NHL dreams began to percolate, he was getting a little anxious about whether he was going to hit the imaginary bar that teams set when it comes to height.

That worry didn’t last too long because in the past two years, he hit a growth spurt. He added almost eight inches and more than 48 pounds right as he was moving two hours west of home to play hockey in Örebro.

“I was like, all the other guys that are moving [to play hockey] are like 10 centimeters [approximately 4 inches] taller. How am I going to manage? But once it came [and I got bigger], I was really happy,” he said, noting he was still the same player but was able to use his body more to his advantage and that, with the growth spurt, he still needs to work on his skating.

“I never went to the gym and ate so much food as I did in that period of time when I started noticing that I can build muscle.”

Command worked out with his uncle Christophe, who has been a personal trainer for 20 years, and as he grew, he started adding weight training. “It was a big difference,” he said, “and I think it’s from there that I gained so much muscle, because I trained the right way, ate all the right stuff, had my good night’s sleep every day, and had my mom’s home-cooked meals.”

He likes his mom’s stuvade makaroner, a recipe that calls for macaroni boiled in milk before it is eaten with sausage and ketchup, and the tacos she makes with chicken and mango. He used to struggle to finish two tacos, but in the last few years he’ll easily chow down on three.

Commands of execution

All the work has built an inner belief that Command can succeed as he continues to take steps in his career. It shines through with his big personality, which is a little uncommon in reserved Sweden, and has given him the mentality that he can compete no matter who he is facing.

It’s why Karl Kling, his coach for Örebro’s U20 squad, which plays in Nationell, Sweden’s top junior league, called his biggest strength his mindset.

“He always wants to go to the next level, so he’s always like hunting that next thing in his career, or in his game,” Kling told The Inquirer during a recent phone interview.

“It’s his mentality, because a lot of kids can shoot and pass a puck, but he’s very competitive, and he believes in himself. So, I think it’s his biggest strength.”

This past season, Command led his junior team with 44 points (17 goals, 27 assists) and 61 penalty minutes despite playing in 30 of the team’s 36 regular-season games. Kling said he was among the league’s best in the faceoff circle, that he plays with an edge and is intense, and that he was one of his most important players on the power play. Command added he likes to get under his opponent’s skin.

The then-17-year-old added another 13 points in 14 playoff games before the Vipers lost in the semifinals to Flyers prospect Max Westergård and Frölunda; they’d lose in the final.

During the season, Command, who says his comp is Patrice Bergeron, a former Boston Bruins center and six-time Selke Trophy winner, as the NHL’s top defensive forward, earned a six-game promotion to Örebro’s SHL squad in Sweden’s top league. He did not register a point.

However, he scored a bunch when he helped Sweden win gold at the Under-18 Men’s World Championship, notching seven points in seven games — the same numbers for another gold medalist, Jett Luchanko, in his draft year — while centering the top line.

“I think people were impressed by how he played at the U18s, in part because he had these two really skilled one-way wingers on his line, and he kind of had to do all the hard work — that would be [Elton] Hermansson and [Marcus] Nordmark, who are highly ranked players in this year’s draft,“ The Athletic’s senior NHL prospects writer Corey Pronman told The Inquirer in Western New York.

“That line had a lot of success, in part due to how Command played at both ends of the ice.”

In May, Command signed a two-year extension with Örebro that will carry him through 2027-28. The expectation is that he will play in the SHL, but Kling would welcome him back to the U20 team if he needs more ice time to work on finding a balance with his game.

Or maybe the next stop is the NHL? And could that be in orange and black?

“I’ve gotten to know their organization good, and we stand for the same things,” he said.

He added with a smile: “My cockiness and maybe a bit of my personality I think fits the Flyers organization and the people.”

The NHL scouting combine is over. The predraft news conference has concluded, and, starting Friday, the Flyers select their next generation in the 2026 NHL draft.

Determining who they will pick is always a gamble, especially this season; the Orange and Black will pick 21st in the first round. But since the Flyers will be making their picks in Atlantic City, let’s test our luck and roll the dice here in our third mock draft — which will only be two rounds as the Flyers traded away their third-rounder to Toronto on Tuesday.

First round: Jack Hextall

In our first mock draft, published before the NHL scouting combine, this spot belonged to defenseman Tommy Bleyl. In our second, published post combine, it was center Alexander Command.

Command likely will be long gone. Center Ilia Morozov, wingers Wyatt Cullen and Ethan Belchetz, and forward Maddox Dagenais, who is projected as a winger in the NHL, sound like they will be drafted before the Flyers pick, too. Fans also should keep an eye on Nikita Klepov as the Flyers brass travels to Florida to see the right winger and other Gold Star clients in their annual predraft camp.

So, the question remains: why not go back to Bleyl, a dynamic offensive defenseman? Yes, the Flyers need help on the power play, and the New York native is considered a top-tier quarterback; however, as general manager Danny Brière was quick to point out on Tuesday, “right now you might have some needs, but in four years, five years, that need might be different” — and the Flyers desperately need help on the man advantage today.

When asked about the small defensemen available, like the 5-foot-11 Bleyl, assistant general manager Brent Flahr said they need to be dynamic but then glossed over the position: “There are premier forwards at the top of the draft, a grouping of big-time defensemen, and then it goes back to forwards.” The Flyers do like 6-7¼ defenseman Maksim Sokolovskii, but taking him at No. 21 feels like a reach more massive than Jett Luchanko in 2024.

So, reading between the lines, it sounds like the Flyers are keying in on a forward.

With all that — if the Flyers do not trade the pick — let’s go with Jack Hextall, who, for the record, is a distant cousin of Ron Hextall, the former Flyers goalie and general manager. Jack told The Inquirer in Buffalo that the two have never met.

This Hextall is a 6-foot-½ inch, 195-pound right-shot centerman who is projected to play a middle-six role. The fact he is a righty is intriguing, as Luchanko, Jacob Gaucher, and Cole Knuble, who is more of a winger but can play down the middle, are the only right-handed pivots in the organization.

The 18-year-old from Illinois is known for his big motor, a high compete level, relentlessness, and, according to Ryan Ward, his coach with Youngstown of the United States Hockey League, “His brain is off the charts.” The Flyers love picking centers in the first round, plus they focus on all these traits when drafting, as seen with someone like Denver Barkey, who can play wing and center.

Hextall finished with 58 points in 59 games for the Phantoms (apropos, no?) and had seven points for the winning USA Hockey squad at the 2025 Hlinka Gretzky Cup.

“His bread and butter is how well-rounded he is,” The Athletic’s NHL draft and prospects reporter Scott Wheeler told The Inquirer. “The details off the puck, up and under sticks, retrievals, board battles, he’s got pro habits.

“If you talk to the guys in Youngstown, the first thing they say about him is that he’s a pro; this isn’t a junior hockey player, like a lot of these kids are. [He] does everything the right way, no selfishness to his game and he doesn’t cheat for offense.”

One more reason to keep an eye on him: he is heading to Michigan State in September.

Second round: Xavier Villeneuve

Where defenseman Xavier Villeneuve ends up is truly all over the map. He could end up going in the first or second round. As one coach told The Inquirer recently, if a team falls in love with a player, they may try to take them earlier than expected.

The latest mock draft by Corey Pronman, the senior NHL prospects writer for The Athletic, has Villeneuve going to the Flyers in the second round with the 53rd overall pick. It matches the word on the street that his stock has dropped a bit as the 5-10¾, 164-pound blueliner needs to work on his defense and gain strength to accommodate his small stature; however, there is a massive upside to Villeneuve, especially offensively.

The 18-year-old has a good stick, can skate, and dropped 38 points in an injury-plagued season — he had 14 points in 17 playoff games — for Blainville-Boisbriand of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. He had 143 points in 152 regular-season games across three seasons in “The Q” and had eight points in seven games at last year’s Under-18 Championships for the gold-medal-winning Canadians.

“He’s very dynamic. His first three, four steps are really dynamic. He’s got a great vision,” his coach, Alexandre Jacques of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League’s Blainville-Boisbrand Armada, told The Inquirer. “Offensively, he’s seeing things, and he’s able to create things that not too many players are able to do.

“At the offensive blue line, he is really, really, really deceptive, so he’s able to create something out of nothing with his edge [work]. Skating sideways is probably one of his greatest attributes, and he’s good at using [his edge work] to create shooting lanes or to create offensive situations.”

Down the road, yes, the expectation is that Villeneuve could help the Flyers power play as the quarterback. And you’d have to think the scouting and player development staffs have been keeping tabs on the Laval, Quebec, native as he was teammates with defenseman Spencer Gill, who is turning pro, with the Armada.

Called an “exciting player to watch” by Boston University coach Jay Pandolfo, Villeneuve brings a hefty comparable in Lane Hutson and is following in his footsteps by joining the Terriers in September.

One other name to keep in mind is Jaxon Cover. Although he does need to work on his skating — something the Flyers do not shy away from — he does have fantastic hands and creativity. A Penn State commit who plays for London of the Ontario Hockey League — the ex-team of Barkey and Oliver Bonk — a lot of his skill set comes from his time on the roller hockey rink while growing up in the Cayman Islands and playing in tournaments across North America before switching to ice hockey when he went to boarding school in Ontario in 2020.

It feels similar to the path of Ty Murchison, a Californian who switched to ice from roller hockey when he was 11 — and neither could stop when they made the switch. Murchison, the Flyers’ fifth-rounder in 2021, made his debut last season and could crack the opening-night lineup in the fall.