Coming into this season, no one really expected the Philadelphia Flyers to be a top 10 team in the NHL by the time the calendar flipped to 2026. But now, they find themselves with the seventh-highest points percentage in the league and are staying on top of the pile of teams in the Eastern Conference vying for a playoff spot.
After all, they were a team that was truly just starting their rebuild less than three years ago, after they fired general manager Chuck Fletcher and brought in their current management group. A couple sizeable trades, future-looking drafts, and some successes like bringing in leading scorer Trevor Zegras later, and now this team is competing with other teams who have been trying to make it deep into the playoffs for several years.
Flyers GM Briere makes it clear that he’s not trading for any short-term fixes
Will all of this success lead to the team trying to be more aggressive and potentially accelerate their rebuilding plans? Flyers general manager Danny Briere makes it very clear: No.
“It doesn’t change the vision,” Briere said before the Flyers went on to beat the Ducks on Tuesday, via ESPN. “It doesn’t change what we’re trying to do. It’s still about the future. It’s not just in the moment. Don’t bank on any rentals and to give up assets. We’re not at that stage yet.”
For more panic-stricken fans that want the Flyers to tank, they can breathe a little bit easier knowing that Briere isn’t just going to empty the prospect cupboard for an old and crusty veteran on his way out of the sport. There will be a time and place for that, but Briere isn’t close. According to the general manager, the Flyers still have full focus on the rebuild and aren’t distracted by the newfound success.
Briere knows just how volatile the NHL standings are right now, especially in the Eastern Conference, and a bad week or two and suddenly the Flyers are no longer an underdog story, but we’re all looking up draft lottery odds in our spare time.
Sure, the Flyers could certainly use a defenseman to quarterback the power play, or some more center depth, or maybe a new backup goaltender, but they aren’t going to leverage the future to do that, knowing just how tight everything is around the league.
“We expected to be competitive. Maybe a little better than I expected, to be honest with you. But I expected us to be competitive,” Briere said. “The funny part is we can win two games and be in first place or we can lose three and be in last place in our division. There’s no guarantee. It can change really quick. I love that at the halfway point we’re right in the mix. That to me is exciting for a lot of our young players to get that experience.”
It’s certainly better to have someone running the Flyers that is not fooled by being in a playoff spot right now, and second in the division, to suddenly switch the road they’re driving down and decide that they should trade Alex Bump for whatever depth defenseman the Calgary Flames decide to pawn off.
But, while we got a look into what the Flyers might be planning to do in the next two months before the trade deadline, it does not mean that they will be completely inactive.
No rentals does not mean no trades for the Flyers
It would be pretty strange to see the trade deadline come and go under this Flyers management and see the team do absolutely nothing. They aren’t going to be parting with young players and draft picks for short-term solutions, but there are still potential deals to be done.
Briere did not dive into what they could do, but rather just said what they will not be doing, but we can all imagine that if there is suddenly a top-six center available that is young enough to fit in the timeline, the Flyers will be throwing a whole lot of assets to get them. Or, if there’s any player in a position of need — like maybe a top-four left-handed defenseman to play with Jamie Drysdale for the next few years — that a deal could still happen.
We’re not discounting anything that still fits with the Flyers’ timeline, as a possibility. But it is certainly comforting to know that we won’t suddenly find a whole lot of fans enraging at them trading away high picks to get a pending unrestricted free agent.
Thank goodness.
