The online world of Philadelphia Flyers fandom was in chaos on Wednesday night. As Flyers general manager held a press conference after doing a bunch of deals in the first few hours of NHL free agency and said one little sentence that served as a spark for thousands of people to let out their emotions about the team overall.
In the very final question of his 18-minute media availability, after combing over the contract extensions of Tyson Foerster and Dan Vladar, adding a veteran like Noel Acciari, and just how he sees next Flyers season overall, Briere was asked if there was any disappointment that nothing bigger happened today.
And one little sentence from his answer to that question made people go nuts.
“No, I’m excited. I’m excited about the way our team played in the second half last year,” Briere said. “I think, you know it’s dangerous — because I’m talking from the fan standpoint. It was so good the way the season ended and it was on a high so you know, you got to be careful, even from our side to not get disappointed because there’s nothing that happened today that was a huge flash.
“If we have a chance, we’ll jump on it. But I think this team is going in the right direction. I’m really excited about the future of this team. We’re still one of the youngest teams in the NHL. We took a big step forward last year. There’s a chance, and a good chance, that we take a little bit of a step back this year. We’re ready for that. But I’m excited where this young group of guys are.”
As we can see in the moderately viral post above, it is really Briere’s quick notion that the Flyers could take a step back next season after making the playoffs. It is the last thing that fans want to hear — after going several years without experiencing the postseason and then being able to break that streak and win a playoff series over the archrival Penguins, it will be extremely difficult to hear that the front office is even thinking about not making the playoffs.
But, we already know that Briere and Flyers management loves to lower expectations surrounding the team just in case they do fall short.
Danny Briere is tempering expectations for the Flyers
It is totally understandable to have a gut reaction that is slightly incoherent and irrational to Briere saying that the Flyers might take “a step back”. But just at thinking about his position as the general manager of a team full of young players — who naturally have a wider variety of impact at such an early stage of their career — and without a move that was a “huge flash”, as Briere mentioned, there really is the possibility of the Flyers not making the playoffs next year.
And then look outside of Philadelphia. The New Jersey Devils, as terrible as it might be, are most likely going to be better next season with a more healthy Jack Hughes and even more so if they acquire Connor Hellebuyck. Even the Columbus Blue Jackets might try to get some sense of stability with Zach Werenski staying and their young players a year older. The New York Islanders have Matthew Schaefer and Ilya Sorokin, the New York Rangers have undoubtedly improved in just a couple days, and there’s always some nasty magic happening with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Even outside of the Metro Division. The Toronto Maple Leafs are being extremely aggressive in their desire to keep Auston Matthews and are expecting to be so much better. The newcomers of the Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens are certainly not going to get worse, the Tampa Bay Lightning are the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the Florida Panthers are back in full force.
Without that big flashy move, we can maybe say confidently that the Red Wings, Blue Jackets, and Islanders are below the Flyers in the conference. And if the Ottawa Senators have another year of terrible goaltending, they could be in that tier below or at least even with them.
Maybe this is preemptively excusing the Flyers for not making the playoffs, just 10 months in advance. But it is just the reality of what we’re seeing around the NHL and comparing that to what the Flyers have done so far.
But therein lies a little bit of the problem, because the Flyers have not made that big move. That is what fans will point at and scream at and go nuts about, especially since the quiet promise was that this summer was going to be a little bit more of an aggressive push.
What else could Briere really have done?
The problem with that stance though, is that what else could Danny Briere have really done? The Flyers were trying to do the flashy move that everyone wanted them to make, it just didn’t come to fruition.
They were in on Zach Werenski and were reportedly extremely aggressive in their pursuit to get one of the best defensemen on the planet. It was just that his preferred destination was either Toronto or Tampa and that was before he eventually decided to not even be traded at all. So the Flyers would have missed out no matter what.
Briere tried to bring in free agent defenseman John Carlson to have a power play quarterback and a very good top-four defenseman, but he instead chose to sign with the Lightning. The Flyers reportedly offered him more money than the two-year, $17-million contract he eventually signed for. It was purely that he saw a massive opportunity to replace Darren Raddysh and play on a Stanley Cup contender.
Now, you can certainly poke holes in that and yell and scream about how the Flyers are not an attractive enough destination to bring in the John Carlsons of the world, but that is what they’re still building towards. Porter Martone hasn’t even played 10 regular season games yet. It’s still a rebuild and they’re still at the early stages of the typical competitive growth a team goes through, as Briere mentioned before his “step back” comments.
The Flyers didn’t even really have the chance to make the small, incremental improvements. If they brought in Darnell Nurse, he certainly would have helped them be a better team on the ice, there is no arguing against that. He’s a good top-four defenseman but just paid as a No. 1 defenseman so people have a sour taste in their mouth when they read his name. Philadelphia was in on Nurse and if he didn’t expand his trade list to include San Jose, he surely could have ended up in the orange and black. But it was him being willing to go down to California and the Sharks willing to take on his entire contract — since the Oilers did not want to retain any salary — that completely pushed the Flyers out of the picture.
If the Flyers got better by adding Nurse but also added his full $9.25-million AAV, it would be potentially disastrous, so they didn’t end up doing that. And San Jose even gave up a solid and young defenseman in Shakir Mukhamadullin in the trade, as well. The Flyers were not doing that and they were right to.
And even another slight improvement that they were in on was to get forward Mavrik Bourque. There was a threat of an offer sheet for the 24-year-old Stars forward, so they were in trade talks with Dallas about him. They could have even offered a first-round pick but didn’t want to take back bad defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin and the one year left on his deal to make it work. Which is totally reasonable — if they’re willing to offer a very good draft pick to get a young player who hasn’t even scored 45 points in a season yet despite being on the wing of elite centers like Roope Hintz and Wyatt Johnston for most of his year, then why do they need to take bad money back? Standing firm in trade negotiations is what Briere does and it’s worked out well enough so far.
There’s even an argument that Bourque would just be more of the same and that adding him would not really be needed in the for place. That players like Denver Barkey and Alex Bump and Noah Cates are already on that same level of Bourque. So paying a first-round pick to not improve the roster all that much, and not even fill a need like a top-six center, would have certainly not been that flashy move or even all that important in the long run.
The Flyers were in on all these moves. There’s no question that Briere and the rest of this team’s management was trying to improve the roster this past week. Whether it was the biggest swing possible in trading young prospects and picks for Werenski, or playing on the edge of the roster and getting players that just round it out more completely and make you that little bit more competitive — the Flyers were trying.
Could they have upped that offer or taken on that bad player for Bourque? Sure. But when Barkey shows up as a better player that is three years younger than him (and maybe even a better centerman), then questions would be raised why they traded their first-round pick and paid Bourque upwards of $6 or $7 million a year.
Could they have taken on Darnell Nurse’s entire contract? Yeah, sure, but they would be heavily scrunitized for doing so.
And the Flyers can’t change a player’s desire to play for a certain team that is at the end of their competitive window and have a better opportunity to win the Cup than the Flyers because they have already done all the work that the Flyers are currently doing.
The week isn’t even over yet
Honestly, at the time of writing free agency hasn’t even been open for 24 hours. Briere just had to speak shortly after doing some deals and securing good players to potential bargain contracts, and couldn’t really comment further on what else he has cooking.
Maybe Claude Giroux comes back and fixes the power play while teaching Matvei Michkov what Jaromir Jagr was able to teach him. Maybe Rasmus Ristolainen is eventually traded for some help. Maybe Owen Tippett and something else is moved for a top-six center we didn’t even know was available.
There are so many other things that can happen but Briere had to speak right then and there and he decided to cool the temperature just a little bit and plant the smallest seed in fans’ minds that the Flyers are still an extremely young team with loads of potential and while the playoffs were great, they are not an expectation right now.
We’ll just see where the rest of this summer takes us and where things stand when training camp comes around in a couple months. But right now, the Flyers are clearly trying and you cannot fault them for either backing out of a losing trade or players not wanting to play for an up-and-coming team just yet.
