Press conferences are bullshit.
Remember when Chuck Fletcher was hired? We were told he would have a “bias for action.” Year later, he said he planned on an “aggressive retool.”
This didn’t amount to anything more than words and a punchline for a mediocre column lede less than five years later. We watched a middling roster atrophy to the bottom of the league with roster reshaping that consisted of change-of-scenery trades and middle-of-the-lineup additions. When the Flyers reached the point where the only option was to start anew, Fletcher couldn’t even sell off expiring contracts, but he could tell us how hard his job was.
Pardon me for being curt and perhaps a bit crass as I am on newborn hours, but Fletcher and the Flyers were full of shit. Even if those aggressive intentions existed, he was incapable of executing those plans.
This might be why I have been guarded when it comes to Danny Briere. Sure, he’s told us what we’ve wanted to hear by preaching patience and a commitment to rebuilding, but words only go so far.
But this week, Briere showed us he is true to his words and gave us some optimism he will be capable of accomplishing his plan.
There are a number of encouraging aspects in the Ivan Provorov deal. Let’s start with Briere’s fearlessness. Provorov was a high draft pick who delivered on some of his promise early in his career, though his play has fallen off since the Covid shutdown. Sure, the Flyers struggled to find him a good partner, but, as we enter a rebuild, Briere was unlikely to add externally in an effort to unlock Provorov. Regardless, the previous regime unsuccessfully tried to do this. Maybe Provorov finds his game, but it was unlikely to happen here.
Even if he did return to form, Provorov would need a new contract in two years when his current deal expires, leading to another dilemma. Briere didn’t show any fear that this could backfire. It could! But if the Flyers are rebuilding, Provorov is more likely to continue to depreciate in Philadelphia, and the best move for this franchise was getting a valuable return for the disappointing blue liner.
Briere also showed impressive creativity in this deal. Consider that Los Angeles’s only involvement in the deal was to clear cap space. Briere had that team eat a portion of Provorov’s contract to maximize his return from Columbus. This also allows the team all of its salary retention slots should he continue to sell this summer. This feels a long way removed from struggling to find a taker at the deadline for James van Riemsdyk, who scored at a 20-goal pace every season from 2010-22.
He also weaponized cap space. The Flyers showed they are trusting the process by taking on the last two years of Cal Petersen’s contract. You can go look up his hockeydb. It won’t take fancy stats to realize how bad he was last year and how dire his contract situation is. But if you don’t plan on winning in the next two years, it’s worth taking on the cap hit in exchange for draft capital. Struggles in the short term will be acceptable as long as they lead to progress down the road. That goes for both who is and isn’t here.
Collectively, this showed a full-throated commitment to a plan. Ron Hextall wanted to clean up the cap and build through the draft, but he didn’t want to bottom out, and it led to a middling mess. Fletcher was supposed to push the chips in and accelerate the timeline. He never traded top prospects or reshaped the nucleus of the roster, never really changing the trajectory of the franchise, until his core ran its course and bottomed out.
In one trade, Briere moved a top-pair defenseman while collecting draft picks and utilizing cap space in a manner that shows that this is not going to be an attempt at a short-term, halfhearted effort. As Travis Konecny and Carter Hart pop up in rumors, anything feels possible, because Briere does not seem adherent to the expectations we had for this core while being committed to pushing this team to its next iteration. Most importantly, Briere appears to have the ability and courage to execute his plan.
Press conferences may just be public relations, but Briere told us we were in for a rebuild. Here we go. No matter how this plays out, I don’t think I will look back on Briere’s run and think he was full of shit.
