2024 was a miserable year for Danny Briere and the Philadelphia Flyers. With the exception of Matvei Michkov making the jump to North America early, it was a year filled with one disaster after another. But 2025 has been a sneaky good year for Briere, who had more than a bit of doubt cast about his abilities to be the GM of the team.
So with the offseason more than likely over, let’s look back on the moves Briere made from January to July 2025.
Frost and Farabee trade
It’s kinda odd when you think about the fact the two players who spent six seasons on the main roster were traded for virtually nothing and it was still a positive, but hey, that’s the Flyers, baby.
Clearing Farabee’s $5 million aav was the highlight of the move, and finally putting an end to the long, drawn out failure that was the Morgan Frost experience was the icing on the cake.
They ultimately landed a second, third and seventh round picks after they flipped Kuzmenko to LA at the deadline.
This move was very well timed, as the season was careening off a cliff and the fanbase was getting antsy after they had realized they were duped during the 2024 offseason. It was far past time to make a big roster shakeup, and this went about as well as it could all things considered.
Grade: A
Scott Laughton trade
The reality trading Laughton should’ve happened at least two years before it did, but they didn’t kill his value too much by waiting. They walked away with a first round pick and a prospect (Nikita Grebenkin) with some upside for Laughton, which is pretty close to the rumors that have been following the player for a long time.
Dealing Laughton may have been the biggest trade as far as symbolism goes, because he was the long-reigning de facto leader of the team, putting an end to his decade of time on the roster, and still finding decent value to make it happen.
They did have to retain half of his cap hit in 2025-26 to make it happen, though. $1.5 mil isn’t a crippling number by any means, but it does mean they weren’t fully able to wash their hands of the contract to get the return they did.
Grade: B+
Firing Tortorella & Hiring Tocchet
Finally ending the reign of terror John Tortorella brought to the Flyers was a long overdue move, and the fact Briere didn’t wait until the end of the season showed at least a bit of fortitude. Granted, Tortorella had a UFC-style cage match with Cam York and then went on national television and told the world he didn’t want to learn how to coach this version of the team, so it’s not like Briere’s hands weren’t completely tied here, but it’s still a call to fire a coach three weeks before the end of the season.
Hiring Tocchet and his two random assistants isn’t exactly the best move at face value. Tocchet’s lack of proven success as head coach with previous teams and his obvious ties to the Flyers make this hiring feel more like a gimmick than a real attempt at a solution.
The full results of this move will pan out over the next few seasons, but there were better options out there when it came to proven results and track records of success.
Grade: C
Noah Cates Contract
Cates was one of the better players on the 2024-25 Flyers roster and had a new career high in goals with 16.
Historically, the Flyers love themselves long-term, big-money contracts, particularly for their depth two-way players. So, it was a worry that Cates was in line for a big contract extension. Luckily, he inked a very reasonable four-year, $4 million aav deal.
Should they be committing to players like Cates for even four years? Probably not, but not only was it not as bad as it could’ve been, it’s surprisingly decent, especially given the track record of the team.
Grade: B
Tyson Foerster Contract
Foerster signed a two-year, $3.75 million aav bridge deal. By all accounts, it seems as though Foerster’s camp was the one pushing for a shorter term contract to get him a large payday if his progress continued in line with the rising salary cap. There’s not much to analyze here, it’s a pretty standard bridge deal for a player with his age and experience.
Grade: B
Cam York Contract
It took a bit longer than expected, but York eventually re-signed with the Flyers for five years, coming in at a $5.15 million aav.
If York regains his form, it’s an absolute steal of a contract considering most defensemen in his comparable range typically make 8×8. If he doesn’t bounce back, it’s a perfectly fine dollar value for a second pair guy and should be easy enough to move in the worst case.
Grade: A
Trevor Zegras Trade
Briere acquired Trevor Zegras from the Ducks for Ryan Poehling, and second and fourth round draft picks.
Zegras is very much a rehab project at this point, but they landed him for a price tag of, essentially, free. Even if he sputters out on Philly, they wasted virtually nothing to get him, and they could deal his rights next summer to recoup a decent amount of what they paid to get him in the first place.
Best case they found a 24-year-old top six center who will reach new highs with players like Matvei Michkov and Travis Konecny flanking him.
Grade: A+
2025 NHL Draft
The Flyers didn’t big-brain the sixth overall pick, which was the big worry going in. and the experts seemed to like their second round selections.
Giving up picks 22 and 31 in order to move up to 12 and take Jack Nesbitt still seems like an ill-advised move, but only time will tell with that one. They’ve got one too many of these random swings and misses on first round picks in the last decade to pretend they deserve the benefit of the doubt that Nesbitt will magically be some diamond in the rough. Until he proves himself, this will go down as a suspicious move.
They also didn’t draft a single goaltender, for a second year in a row. Considering that is the major position of weakness in the organization right now, that seems like a really stupid move.
Martone, who will spend the season in the NCAA, is the big win of the day, and if the later round picks pan out then its gravy.
Grade: B-
2025 Free Agency
Christian Dvorak was a band-aid signing at a critical position, but their options were incredibly limited, so they had to make the best of what they were given. He (along with Zegras) is the most attention the Flyers have given their center depth in literal years, no matter how low of a bar that actually is.
Vladar is still painfully disappointing. Again, the free agent pool was very shallow, but John Gibson and Arturs Silovs were both traded for next to nothing and would’ve been smarter choices for various reasons. The essentially just reskinned Fedotov in both contract and stats. For such a contentious point of the team, if the goaltending levy breaks again, their lack of real change is going to be the reason why.
Noah Juulsen was the only other player of semi-note because he’s a right-handed defenseman and is now the front runner to replace Rasmus Ristoalinen on opening night, with Helge Grans and Oliver Bonk taking a back seat to the veteran who’s played for Tocchet in the past.
It wasn’t nothing. It could’ve been a lot worse, but it could’ve been better, too.
Grade: C
Overall Grade: B+
There wasn’t a lot wrong with most of this year for Briere. There’s nothing that can be perceived as glaringly bad or painfully stupid, which is certainly a step forward for the Flyers as a whole. But a lot of those steps were of the baby variety, being moves that should’ve happened during previous years of his tenure as GM, or weren’t necessarily blockbuster positives either.
Tearing down some of the old guard of the roster, and not signing anybody (internally or externally) to stupid contracts were easily the highlights of the year. There’s still some questions about his ability to craft a blockbuster trade (especially of the net-positive main roster kind) or wrangle in a big time free agent, both qualities that are going to be necessary in 2026 and beyond, so the jury is still out on that one.
This year gave some hope that Briere can be the man for the job. His tenure as GM, on the whole, has just not been good enough. So the fact that he was able to go seven months winning little battle along the way has bought him some good grace that, one day, he could win the war too.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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