The Philadelphia Flyers wildly surpassed expectations during the 2023-24 season, but the club’s brain trust hasn’t become disillusioned into abandoning the rebuild.
Speaking with the media during his end-of-season press conference Friday morning, general manager Danny Briere emphasized the importance of adding high-end talent to the roster this offseason, but assured that it wouldn’t come at the expense of the Flyers’ young assets.
“We’re gonna be looking for it, and we’re gonna have discussions with different teams. The bulk of it still needs to be done through our young guys, mostly through the draft,” said Briere.
“When teams have talented players, they don’t want to trade them away. What I’m saying is more that we’re probably not gonna throw a lot of money at a free agent to come in and take us overboard. We’re not gonna trade young players for older veterans that are gonna bring more talent. We’re still gonna respect that timeline that we’ve put in place. That hasn’t changed. But if there’s a trade that makes sense that can bring more talent and there’s a way that makes sense — maybe it’s a hockey trade — we’re definitely open for business, and we’re gonna keep exploring that.”
The timeline of the Flyers’ rebuild is still unclear. Popular belief suggests the Flyers will enter “win-now mode” come the arrival of prized Russian prospect Matvei Michkov, who still has two years remaining on his contract with the KHL. But it may not be that simple.
Before the Flyers can become true contenders, they’ll need their young players to develop into no-doubt-about-it NHLers.
Luckily, the club already got a taste of that this season.
Several of the Flyers’ young players took significant strides this season. Tyson Foerster, for example, proved to be both a reliable two-way presence and a solid source of point production at just 22 years old, while goaltender Sam Ersson was thrust into an extremely difficult spot after becoming the Flyers’ de facto starter following Carter Hart’s departure from the team. Against all odds, Ersson went on to play well for much of the season (even if he was overworked toward the end of the campaign).
The Flyers’ new core is beginning to take shape, but while the blossoming of the young guns is encouraging, there’s still much progress to be made.
“A lot of players have opened our eyes. We realized that they were maybe more ready than we thought. There’s obviously guys that jump out at you. When I say that, Tyson Foerster, the way he’s taken his game, we didn’t think he’d have as big of an impact. I don’t think we expected Bobby Brink to be a regular for most of the season with us going into the season. Cam York, the way he’s taken his game to an extra level. Travis Sanheim, how he’s stepped up big-time after being challenged last summer. Egor Zamula, we didn’t know if he good be a regular. Sam Ersson. I could go down the list. That’s the exciting part.
“I still am not quite there as far as saying that we’re a contender. I don’t believe we’re at the point where it’s time to let some young assets go to try to get better quicker. We’re not there yet. But there’s certainly a lot of players that have brought some optimism as far as believing that we’re going in the right direction. We have to be careful, and I know the expectation next year will be that, ‘Oh, we’ve got to get into the playoffs.’ I don’t even know that we’re there yet.
“It was a great year, but there’s still a long ways to go.”
