Is Flyers GM Danny Briere Showing Patience or Panic?
Flyers General Manager Danny Briere has had an interesting couple of months leading the organization’s rebuilding effort. There have been trades, illegal trades, near trades that have fallen through, free-agent signings, and a draft. On the surface, many moves look to be smart and patient textbook rebuilding. But even in his short tenure Briere is makings some head-scratching moves that need to be examined, questioned, and critiqued.
Briere’s greatest success to date has been the draft. Drafts are almost always forward-looking, where teams hope to have their draftees ready to play for the big club in two or three years. Briere’s decision to draft Matvei Michkov, knowing that he was under a KHL contract for three years, seemed to be a smart and patient move, one seemingly designed to reap long-term benefits. Moreover, picks like Bonk, Barkey, and Ciernik all seem to have legitimate chances to make an NHL roster in two to four years. Time will tell how the picks pan out, but Briere’s maneuvering pushed the team closer to the complete retooling they need.
Trading away Provorov also seemed to be a smart play for the Flyers’ GM. Rather than settling for a “deal”, he got “the deal”. While trading Provorov may not have needed to happen, it was unlikely the Russian defenseman would have enjoyed spending three or more of his prime years on a team that was not good enough to compete for a cup. Given the pride night fiasco, it is unlikely Provorov would have been happy here in Philly. There is a question if Briere could have gotten more for Provorov if he had waited until this season’s trade deadline, but it is hard to imagine it would have been a great deal more. By making the deal when he did, and allowing the Flyers to draft Bonk, Briere sped up the rebuilding timeline by getting a good prospect in a deep draft, this year, rather than waiting until next summer. In this case, being patient would not have vastly improved the Flyers’ position.
Where things get a little murkier is with the Krug-Sanheim trade. On the surface, it appears that Flyers management now thinks that the Sanheim extension was a mistake (it was), but it may be a blessing that the deal did not go through. Trading for Krug would have shortened the length of the contract term, with Krug’s contract wrapping in 2027 as compared to Sanheim who is signed through 2031, but Krug is a shell of the player he was. Maybe he would be easier to trade in a couple of seasons than Sanheim and his contract, but it seems just as likely that Krug will be out of the NHL by that time. As one of Sanheim’s most vocal detractors, the team is better off keeping him in his prime years and his awful contract if the alternative is a diminished Krug. Pursuing this deal indicates a souring on Sanheim, and targeting a declining Krug in exchange indicates there is little interest. The question becomes, why the rush? There are plenty of players with lousy contracts that teams would be happy to dump. Why the urgency to remove Sanheim?
Unfortunately, the Flyers were able to trade Hayes to the Blues, for a sixth-round pick. While trying to withhold judgment, this move reeks of panic, and like the proposed Sanheim deal, it is a head-scratcher. It has been documented that Hayes and Tortorella were not getting along, and it was something easily predicted. That said, just how bad was this situation? Even if we imagine the worst, why did the trade have to happen now? What do the Flyers gain by rushing this?
Briere said the key to the deal was not taking a contract back. But this is really a matter of perspective. They did part ways with Hayes, they did lose half of his contract. But what they retained is $3.5M which will be on their cap for the next three years.
Perhaps there is some grand free agent plan I am missing, like a large extension for Morgan Frost, but moving Hayes with that kind of salary retention doesn’t help the Flyers much. Whatever Hayes’ faults may be, he is undoubtedly worth more than a sixth-round pick, especially with the Flyers holding 50% of his salary.
Looking at it another way, if the Blues decide to trade Hayes, and keep 25% of his salary (about 1.8 million) what do you think they could get at the trade deadline for him? If a team like Tampa Bay, or Colorado has an injury, what would they give up for Hayes, at 1.8 million per season? Hayes is a steal at that price. A top-tier prospect and a first-rounder would be the floor in my estimation.
The question is why the urgency on a deal that barely moves the needle for the Flyers’ rebuild, where they lose one of their best players? It seems a deal this bad could be struck at any time with virtually any team that needed help at center. Given the subsequent moves with DeAngelo set to be moved, the Flyers still do not have a cap room. If clearing the decks of cap space is important, should other players be on the block? Maybe the team should have looked to have shopped Scott Laughton and his $3M a year cap hit, where a sixth-round pick, while still low, but closer to the players value. Briere’s story is not adding up.
The elephant in the room is the Hayes – Tortorella feud. I am not sure how bad things were, I have no insight into what was done to bring the temperature down, but if things were bad between coach and player, shouldn’t the GM step in to broker peace and do what was best for the organization? Again, there could be some plan that is yet to reveal itself, but I am not yet seeing it.
The Flyers and Briere are trying to clean house, that is evident, but they should be doing so with the primary objective being to make the franchise competitive as quickly as possible. Giving away cornerstone players for cap space is not the way to do it. Has the Gostisbehere trade taught them nothing?
In the end, moving Hayes makes the Flyers worse, and contributes very little to the rebuild. Hayes could have been a chip that could have accelerated the Flyers’ rebuild, given the right circumstance. Briere decided to go aggressive and force the issue. Time will tell if this was the right approach, but with the 2023- 2024 season already looking down, it seems that there would have been a better opportunity to unload Hayes. Briere needs less panic and more patience to find the fastest path the competitive hockey.