The Philadelphia Flyers led by GM Danny Briere were active at the trade deadline collecting future assets for Scott Laughton and Andrei Kuzmenko. It was a bit of a sigh of relief after things were starting to get a bit tense after the 2024-25 season started to sour on the ice. The movement at the deadline followed up a deal with the Calgary Flames back in late January. In the big picture none of these trades ultimately meant much in terms of landing major pieces, instead, it was a shot from Briere that he may actually have what it takes to do this GM thing after all.
If this were a normal hockey team, patting them on the back for doing the most basic of moves at a deadline wouldn’t be a necessity, but for the Flyers, giving them praise is few and far between over the last decade or so, so giving Briere his due for stepping up and removing some long-tenured players is only fair.
There’s been a “flavor of the week” problem with the current Flyers’ regime. There doesn’t seem to be a legitimate long-term strategy, and their short-term decision making is based on the trends over the last couple weeks. A few wins and they’re buyers, a few losses and they’re rebuilding. It’s the joy of forever playing .500 hockey, they can adapt to whatever unfolds on the ice.
It was Danny Briere and Keith Jones over the last year that have strongly hinted at wanting to make the playoffs despite the minuscule roster changes they produced and the continued mediocre on-ice product ultimately being their downfall during 2023-24 and it went largely unchanged leading to similar disappointing results in 2024-25 despite their dreams of grandeur of overcoming the odds and catching lightning in a bottle to make a postseason run. They fell back on “it’s a rebuild” both times despite that not always being the consistent message throughout the season.
When fans on social media propel that kind of fickleness, it’s one thing. A bit tongue-in-cheek to cope with the uncertainty of the team. But when the front office is more focused on building a narrative they can fluctuate based on results rather than just building a winning product it’s quite concerning.
The stale nature of the 2024 offseason partnered with another bottom-ten finish in the league has turned up the heat on Briere over the last few months. In fact, things were starting to hit critical peak right before the Frost and Farabee trade, which alleviated some pressure from the boiling pot, and Briere followed that up by dealing Laughton at the deadline.
Maybe they finally realized their way of fighting upstream with the weird rebuilding-but-not-quite-rebuilding gimmick wasn’t working and this was a white flag and ultimately a shift toward something different. Or maybe this was just the front office realizing they needed to make some moves to save their own ass so they didn’t meet the same fate as their predecessor did.
Either way, the interest about what lies ahead during the 2025 offseason has certainly skyrocketed. Will the Flyers continue to sell and pick up more picks and prospects and attempt to actually rebuild? Or will they take a step forward and try and achieve their playoff dreams by landing a big main roster piece during the summer? Or will they do nothing and run back a near identical roster for the third straight season? Who’s to know! But the fascination is now there were it wasn’t just a few weeks ago.
Briere still needs that blockbuster net-positive trade. He still needs to prove he’s capable of some outside-the-box thinking. But after finally parting ways with Frost, Farabee and Laughton, it could be the signal that things are finally about to change. While skepticism about his ability can remain until he proves otherwise, it’s at least intriguing to see what a motivated Briere could have up his sleeve. And he’s finally earned a bit of leash to run.
Now just don’t screw it up again.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit:
brotherlypuck.com 