Going back to when Daniel Brière was given the interim general manager’s title after Chuck Fletcher was finally ousted as both President of Hockey Operations and General Manager, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek mentioned that Brière and company want to liken the new era of Philadelphia Flyers hockey to the recent successes from the Colorado Avalanche and Boston Bruins.
Modernism was the key word coming from anybody that was covering the circus that was the Philadelphia Flyers, and with how the Bruins and Avalanche have constructed their front offices over the last several years, Brière pointed to their blueprint as the one he wanted to follow to bring this team back from the dead.
At one point in time, Joe Sakic was not looked upon with the same grace he receives nowadays. The Avalanche were a mess from top-to-bottom when he took over after they finished 4th, 3rd, and last in their division before winning the crown in 2013-14, but bowed out in the first round. Then once he took over they finished last, 6th, and last again before he made the move of trading Matt Duchene. For whatever reason, that move alone catapulted the Avalanche into the team they’ve become today.
They drafted well with their high picks – Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen in particular – and coupled with Nathan MacKinnon’s spring into superstardom, they’ve become a behemoth in the league. MacKinnon went from 75 goals and 206 points in 300 games from 2013-14 to 2016-17 to 209 goals to 553 points in just 409 games since the Duchene trade. The Avalanche finally got over their 2nd round hump in 2021-22 as they captured the Stanley Cup.
Another team that Brière wants to follow is that of the New Jersey Devis. A once venerated and popular rivalry, both teams suffered in pure mediocrity for well over a decade after their last playoff meeting in the spring of 2012. After defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins in a series to remember, the Flyers looked to be the team to beat. They were deep, loaded, and scored goals aplenty, it all came down to Ilya Bryzgalov in goal, and unfortunately he flamed out hard in their 5-game series defeat to New Jersey.
Since then, the Flyers have missed the postseason in 7 of 11 seasons and only advanced past the first round once – in the COVID bubble – while the Devils missed the playoffs 9 times in that span but are coming off a season where they recorded the third-most points in the league at 112. The Devils lost in the Stanley Cup Final in 2011-12 and after that they finished last, 6th, 7th, 7th, last, 4th, last, last, 7th, and 7th in their division in the years that followed.
In 2021-22, the Devils finished 7th out of 8 teams in the Metropolitan Division with a 27-46-9 record, only better than the Flyers who came in last place with a 25-46-11 record. As fate would have it, the Devils leapfrogged the Flyers in the draft lottery and selected Simon Nemec with the 2nd overall pick, dropping the Flyers to 5th. 12 months later, the Devils went from 63 points to 112, while the Flyers went from 61 points to just 75.
The biggest reason they made the leap was because of their young players and their fully-loaded farm system. The Devils won the lottery in 2017 when they jumped from 5th to 1st, and then they won again in 2019 when they jumped from 3rd to 1st. In 2017 they drafted Nico Hischier, and in 2019 they drafted Jack Hughes. In 2020 they drafted Alexander Holtz with the 7th overall pick, in 2021 they drafted Luke Hughes with the 4th overall pick, and then last year they drafted Simon Nemec with the 2nd overall pick. Add in Dawson Mercer, Jesper Bratt, and Yegor Sharangovich, plus Dougie Hamilton and Timo Meier, and it’s no wonder why they leapfrogged almost everyone this year.
Similar to the Flyers in a way, it was always a question of “when” rather than “if” the Devils were going to make the leap in every given season with their highly-rated pipeline. However, unlike the Flyers, the Devils actually pulled through but that’s in large part to their lottery luck that landed them first overall picks in years they didn’t finish in last place.
It took some time for Nico Hischier, but he has now become a two-way threat after notching his first 30-goal and 80-point season on top of being named a Selke Trophy finalist.
After a couple of rocky seasons for Jack Hughes – that had many people doubting him – he went from 26 goals and 56 points in 49 games in 2021-22 to 43 goals and 99 points in 78 games this season.
Dougie Hamilton added 22 goal and 74 points from the back-end, Jesper Bratt chipped in with 32 goals and 73 points, Dawson Mercer had 27 goals and 56 points in his sophomore season, and even Tomas Tatar did his part with a 20-goal, 48-point campaign.
In total, they had 9 players record 30+ points, 10 players record 10+ goals, and traded for Timo Meier at the deadline and he scored 9 goals and 14 points in 21 games with New Jersey, without the Devils having to give away any of their top rated prospects aside from Fabian Zetterlund.
Brière sees all of this and wants to do his best in perhaps mimicking their success:
“You can even look to a team like New Jersey, who was kind of spinning their wheels but they were rebuilding and doing it the right way. Then, boom, this year they pop and they’re one of the best teams in the NHL. I give them credit, they were patient, they didn’t let the noise affect them. That’s going to be the biggest — probably toughest — thing for us, is going to be stay patient and keep with the process that we believe in.”
Understanding the nuances of a rebuild is very important because there are severe growing pains that come with it. Will the Flyers finish either last or second-last in the division in 7 of the next 8 seasons? Most likely not, since they do have certain pieces already in place to cut their time in half. However, they also need some luck in the draft and if not there then they at least have to hope their top prospects turn into good-to-great players.
New Jersey drafted Hischier and Jack Hughes first overall, Nemec 2nd overall, Luke Hughes 4th overall, Holtz 7th overall, and Mercer 18th overall. Bratt was a late round gem as he fell in the 6th round but didn’t really burst onto the scene until 2021-22. The Flyers are hoping that same trend transpires for Cutter Gauthier (5th overall), Tyson Foerster (23rd overall), Bobby Brink (2nd round), and whoever they draft this season with the 7th overall pick.
When it comes to the Colorado Avalanche, Brière can look at how Joe Sakic was tasked to break up the core that carried some very talented players that for whatever reason couldn’t figure things out on the ice. The year before he was promoted to the general manager’s spot, the Avalanche won their division but were ousted in the first round with a cast that included Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog, Ryan O’Reilly, Paul Stastny, and a rookie Nathan MacKinnon. All 5 players scored 60+ points during the regular season and outside of Stastny (28), they were all 23 years old or younger.
The Avalanche couldn’t get a deal done with Stastny, who ended up taking more money in St. Louis, and they ended up finishing last in their division the following season with veterans joining the fray in Jarome Iginla, Alex Tanguay, and even Brière himself in his final NHL season.
Ahead of the draft, Sakic pulled off a monumental move, trading O’Reilly to the Buffalo Sabres for Nikita Zadorov, Mikhail Grigorenko, J.T. Compher, and the 31st overall pick. Zadorov was drafted in the first round 2 years before the deal, Grigorenko was drafted in the first round 3 years prior, on top of Compher who was a 2nd round pick in 2013.
The Avalanche finished 6th in the division in 2015-16, came in last place again in 2016-17, and decided it was finally time to move on from Matt Duchene mid-season in 2017-18. In a three-team trade that involved the Nashville Predators, Colorado acquired Sam Girard, Vladislav Kamenev, and a second round pick in 2018 from the Predators as well as Andrew Hammond, Shane Bowers, a first and third round pick in 2018 from Ottawa as Duchene went to the Senators and Kyle Turris went to Nashville. The condition on Ottawa’s first round pick was that if it was a top-10 pick, it would slide to 2019 – which ended up happening and the Avalanche were able to draft Bowen Byram with the 4th overall pick in 2019.
It was a rough few years in Colorado, where they finished 7th, 6th, and 7th between 2014-15 to 2016-17, but they were able to move on from their disgruntled core players, keep the young players they saw a fit for, and hit on their draft picks as they were able to nab players like Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar in the process. Nathan MacKinnon really took on his 1st overall moniker immediately after the Duchene deal, which only made the move that much more impactful and made Sakic look like a genius – on top of what he already received in the trade.
With all that in mind, Brière said he would love nothing more than to cut the timeline and expedite the Flyers as soon as possible, but if he’s to actually make inroads on this rebuild, he at the very least has the blue-print of several successful attempts.
“If I can put a Stanley Cup contender on the ice in October 2023, I would do it. Obviously it’s not realistic. It depends on how things fall into place, it depends how players develop. There are so many things at play. I think it’s too premature at this point to put a number on it; so many things have to fall in place before we have a better idea of kind of where we’re going.”
One thing that Brière is very excited about and thinks will help with this rebuild is how the new front office has been shaping up. The hiring of Keith Jones as President of Hockey Operations and having his head coach in John Tortorella around as well, he likens it to a hockey-line having great chemistry and subsequent success – like when he, Ville Leino, and Scott Hartnell took over in the spring of 2010.
“I wanted the best wingers to be on my side to come to something special. I’ll give you an example, playing with Ville Leino and Scott Hartnell. I think we were better as a line than we were probably individually. That’s kind of the same thing with me. I’ll have my opinion, but it doesn’t mean that I’m always right. I want the opinion of others around me to come to the best answer. I’m believer of that — teamwork is important and that’s how I’m going to lead.
“Today, you saw on the hockey side, you saw Keith and you saw Torts, but there’s more than that. Our staff, everybody’s going to have their say and at the end of the day, we’re going to discuss and the three of us are going to find a way to get to the best answer or the best solution when it comes down to it. I couldn’t feel better about it. I’m really ecstatic.”
Brière really thinks that John Tortorella will have a huge impact on the moves to come and the future of this rebuild. He was very outspoken this year about where this team stood, the moves that needed to be made, and how patience was expected for a team that had little to no talent. Even after a game against the Devils this season, Tortorella could see the vast difference between the two-basement dwellers from 2021-22.
“We’re not there with that team. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s not a criticism of our team, but we’re not anywhere near there right now. This was probably them a few years ago, Jersey, when they were going through their process.”
Brière even mentioned how other teams and their executives could see a big difference from the 2021-22 Flyers – in large part because of their head coach.
“Just talking to other executives from different teams, that was the thing that kept coming back. Coming here facing the Flyers was tough because Torts has started implementing his system.”
So while it may take some time before we get to cheer for meaningful Flyers hockey during the spring, we at least have a general manager who has near full autonomy to do as he pleases in regards to a rebuild.
In a move similar to the Avalanche of the mid-2010s, the Flyers traded Ivan Provorov to Columbus as part of a three-team trade. Brière has now shown the league that he’s ready and willing to make groundbreaking moves, which is why we are hearing a ton of rumours regarding Carter Hart, Tony DeAngelo, Kevin Hayes, and Travis Konecny.
Everything is prefaced with the notion that Brière and company have to be blown away in deals regarding Hart and Konecny. The package that he received for Provorov makes many wonder what the Flyers could get for a young goaltender in Carter Hart. Konecny seems safer than any of the aforementioned names but TSN’s Pierre LeBrun mentioned that a few teams might knock on the door very loudly to ensnare his services.
Kevin Hayes has had interest from several teams, including the Columbus Blue Jackets for some time now, but any trade involving the veteran centre would involve salary retention, which at this rate seems to be the final sticking point in getting the deal finalized.
Tony DeAngelo will seemingly follow through playing on an expiring contract and a cap hit of $5 million is overtly egregious. The Flyers could wait until the trade deadline and retain 50% of his salary to facilitate an easier deal, or they could even retain some money right now to push it through this summer, however, either which way Brière is working the phones and gauging interest, and it seems like the plan this summer is to subtract – as Tortorella mentioned countless times.
Everything he is saying is music to our ears but until he’s able to put pen to paper on groundbreaking moves, we have to wait in earnest. If Brière and company are able to copy the Avalanche or the Devils, then we are well ahead of the line, however the prospects the Flyers have need to develop into good-to-great players. They might not be elite superstars like Jack Hughes, but they need some top-end scoring from guys like Cutter Gauthier and Tyson Foerster in the years to come to finally get out of purgatory.
His first major move as general manager is out of the way with the Flyers acquiring a first round pick, 2 second round picks, a prospect, and a few roster players for the disgruntled defenseman.
It’s anyone’s guess whether or not a team actually blows the roof off of Wells Fargo Center for Hart or Konecny, but the first-year general manager has seemingly regained the reputation that the Flyers lost during the Chuck Fletcher era and is working with a clean slate with the rest of his colleagues.
I don’t think there was any chance that Fletcher would’ve received the same offer if he dealt Provorov. He tried several times, but always came back saying that the offers were so underwhelming that it made no sense to execute.
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