Flyers

Danny Briere Tried to Warn Us About This Flyers Team

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Oct 12th, 2026 · 9:55 AM EDT

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Danny Briere warned us about the winless Flyers over the summer. Remember these quotes about expectations?

Transcribed by Kevin Durso at 97.3 ESPN:

“I’m excited about the way our team played in the second half last year. It’s dangerous because, from the fan standpoint, it was so good the way the season ended, it was on a high, so you’ve got to be careful even from our side to not get disappointed because there’s nothing that happened today that was a huge flash. If we have a chance, we’ll jump on it”

…

“I think this team is going in the right direction. I’m really excited about the future of this team. We’re still one of the youngest teams in the NHL.”

…

“We took a big step forward last year, and there’s a chance, a good chance, that we take a little bit of a step back this year. We’re ready for that. But I’m excited where this young group of guys are going.”

That created some consternation among a fan base that was hoping for a significant step forward. Why is the GM talking about backward steps?

Briere walked the comments back in September, just slightly, saying that he didn’t want the young players to feel like they had accomplished something.

Bill Meltzer explained it this way on the Flyers site:

“I think teams will be much better prepared to face us after what happened last year and the way we surprised some teams probably coming down the stretch. So the way I look at it, I’m excited to see how our guys approach the season. How are they ready? How do they perform when things get harder? That’s the part that I’m excited to see, and it’s going to tell us a lot about our team,” Briere said.

In this context, Briere clarified an earlier comment he made during the offseason. It’s not OK for the team to take a backward step after last season’s progress. Rather, there’s a danger that comes with not understanding how pressure increases along with greater expectations and attention.

“The part that keeps me up at night is having some of your players feel complacent, feel like they’ve made it,” Briere said.

That’s an understandable spin, but consider these two items:

1) Taking things at face value

When the general manager hints that the team is going to take a step back, you would probably believe that individual, would you not? Nobody knows the roster better than the guy who put it together. He says the Flyers took a “big step forward,” in the winter of 2026, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, now in hindsight, that team probably shouldn’t have made the playoffs. They benefited big time from the one-off Olympic break and had other teams in front of them collapse, like the Blue Jackets. They turned as 3.8% chance to make the playoffs into a series win over the geriatric Pittsburgh Penguins before they were swept by the eventual Stanley Cup winner.

They played three good months of hockey and almost certainly would not have gotten into the postseason without those three weeks off, because they were in freefall prior.

2) Occam’s Razor

This philosophy states that you can answer a complex problem by using the simplest explanation.

Why are the Flyers currently terrible?

Probably because this roster is 95% of the same guys who miraculously got into the playoffs last year.

They swung for the fences with the Leo Carlsson offer sheet and Anaheim matched. That’s alright. It was a solid and aggressive offer.

But what did they upgrade otherwise? They upgraded the backup goaltender spot. They added Noel Acciari and Simon Benoit. Michael Bunting is here. Porter Martone gets a full season and Matvei Michkov lost 20 pounds. This offseason was largely extending their own guys and hoping the young players would take the next step. This is what Danny Briere was trying to tell you. He didn’t have a direct outlet to high-end offensive talent. He didn’t have a way to secure the superstar that would pull this team out of rebuild mode and put them into contender mode.

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This is a classic case of a team going on a run, overachieving, and then throwing expectations out of whack for the following season. We’ve seen it a hundred times before. They played well from late February to late April, then just didn’t have the horses to compete with the Canes. Maybe it sounds lame now, to poo poo the team after a really fun playoff series win. We all bit down on that fishing hook together, but can you really blame us? The Flyers have been bad for so long that we pulled the wool over our eyes and hoped that the hard corner was finally turned.

But it’s obvious that there’s just not a ton of talent on this team, unless Rick Tocchet’s low-event system is the only culprit. Firing the coach and bringing in someone more offensive-minded could certainly unlock a bunch of these guys. It doesn’t seem like something the Flyers would do, but what’s the concern anyway? That the Flyers will be grossly out-shot and that their goaltenders will be under siege? That’s already happening!