Snider, Clarke and Homer totally misunderstood how the implementation of the salary cap would change the league and each organization's approach to building and maintaining their teams.
The Flyers for so long had been one of the win now, cash-rich teams who would out-bid others for talent and use their prospects to trade for other talent. There was little focus on drafting well, valuing prospects, developing talent and spending within a budget wisely.
When the cap era started, it took them several years to even realize they needed to change and then several more years before they actually took action by bringing in Hextall in an attempt at a smarter approach.
The problem, unlike the 76ers who did a full tear-down, rebuild process with a very innovative GM in Hinkie and dedicated coach in Brown, the Flyers mandated that Hextall win WHILE rebuilding the team and transforming the organization's approach.
That was an impossible task - Hextall did achieve a lot of good things (put us in great cap shape, stocked the farm system with talented foreign and domestic prospects, drafted well and did not trade away assets for quick fixes), but in the end was not able to put the NHL roster on a better footing or satisfy the bosses demands for short circuiting the process so they could sell more tickets, merchandise and make more money.
It was somewhat similar to the 76ers short cutting the process by firing Hinkie and hiring Jerry's son as GM, but the 76ers process was further along and the NBA is much different than the NHL. My fear is the Flyers will not sustain what Hextall did and return to the win now short term thinking that has kept them from hoisting a Cup for 44 years and counting. I hope I am wrong.