Flyers GM Danny Briere

The Philadelphia Flyers can learn from these NHL Front Offices

When confronting the value and merits of a certain front office, the lens through which I do it is rather simple. Winners exploit their advantages. Losers complain about someone else exploiting their advantages.

That isn’t specific to hockey. Frankly, any person responsible for decision-making in any walk of life has to think and behave this way. They have to identify the advantages they possess, and then exploit those advantages to further their ends. If you’re in some unique situation where no advantages exist? Then you better get creative and make some.

How Daniel Briere will be evaluated as the general manager of the Flyers will come down to this. How well does he exploit the advantages inherent in a Philadelphia hockey team?

For an example of how teams have exploited advantages to unfathomable recent success, see Florida. At one time, the Panthers were viewed as a laughingstock around the league.

They couldn’t keep anyone. Nobody would go there. They had no fans. They weren’t a real hockey market. They were a joke. They were just patiently waiting to get phased out by the ruthless expansion of the NHL.

Instead, and rather suddenly, they’ve become one of the premiere teams of the NHL. And not just in the on-ice product. They win games. They entertain people while they do it, and they’ve convinced players around the league that they’re a top-tier destination.

Now, players want to stay there… at a bargain.

We can talk about Florida taxes. But Florida has always had rather loose tax structures. This was always an inherent advantage of their market. It didn’t help before, and now it does. We can talk about beaches, but beaches sure as hell didn’t just pop up in 2021 when the Panthers began their renaissance.

Bill Zito recognized and exploited his advantages. That was what he was supposed to do. That’s what everyone in his position should be doing. It’s quite obvious.

Gustav Forsling is, in function if not form, their number-one defenseman. He gets their hardest minutes, and he wins those minutes. That’s what the mythical 1D should be doing, and he’s doing it. They just got him for under six million after claiming him on waivers.

They just received Vladimir Tarasenko… for absolutely nothing. They gave Ottawa the courtesy of a handshake, and in return, they got a dude who still has considerable offensive juice that they’re about to play alongside Aleksander Barkov on their top line.

I’m being somewhat facetious, as you can see:

But not really. A 3rd and a 4th round pick? Who cares? I’d pay that for players significantly worse at hockey than Tarasenko. And why? Because Tarasenko chose them.

Nobody chose the Panthers. But now they do. And now, people whine about their advantages that weren’t advantages until they started using them correctly.

And then there’s the Vegas Golden Knights. Trade magicians. These guys will trade everything under the sun, and then somehow find a way to trade something else. And you talk about LTIR space… as if every team doesn’t have access to that same advantage.

The Devils have access to LTIR space through Dougie Hamilton, and they aren’t using it. They sure as hell aren’t using it to acquire Noah Hanifin. They sure as hell didn’t use it to acquire Noah Hanifin for… THIS:

No. Only Vegas did that. See, Vegas doesn’t have special advantages. I suppose it’s a nice place to play, but it’s hardly notable. The rules of expansion allegedly allowed them to acquire a stronger starter base of assets that allowed them to load up faster, but the truth is… no. It wasn’t an advantage until they made it one.

Noah, via X, explains it rather succinctly:

Kelly is using sheer audacity as his weapon. He gets all of these things done because he’s willing. He’s taken an NBA approach to trades in the NHL. Every trade is naught but a mechanism for the next trade. And there’s always another trade in Vegas.

They took this concept to the extreme when they conditioned the 2025 first-round pick in the Hanifin… on not trading it somewhere else before Friday. Anybody could have done that, but only the Vegas Front Office had the sheer audacity to conceive of that plan.

There’s always another deal to be made. There’s always a way to get better. There’s always another trade. That’s the Vegas motto.

They were shamed as the worst front office in the league by the very astute critics in the Athletic… the season before they finished as the top seed in the West and won the Stanley Cup. They shouldn’t have been able to build a team in the way that they built their team.

So, what lesson can Danny learn from all of this? It’s exactly like I said. Winners exploit advantages. Losers complain about other people’s advantages. There’s still a desire to do this. Every move Danny makes or doesn’t make has to be fitted with context.

Let’s not act as if the Flyers are somehow bereft of advantages to be exploited. They’re a mix of a large market and a storied hockey town that only the Maple Leafs, Canadiens, and Rangers are surpassing. They boast a significantly easier travel schedule than Toronto or Montreal.

They have an owner who did not even flinch at devouring $9M in contracts purely for a couple of draft picks. Most people talk about cap space as being the only consideration in a deal like this, but the owner had to sign off on a deal that provided their hockey team with literally zero current value at the cost of nearly 10 million dollars combined between Petersen and Johansson.

They’re one of a few teams, like Chicago, who could have decided to completely tank for top 3 draft picks and not been ruined by the financial implications of that strategy.

The Flyers have all the advantages in the world. Keith Jones talked about making Philadelphia a destination… it already is. What determines the success of this Daniel Briere tenure will ultimately be very simple. Can he weaponize the advantages he has as the general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers?

So far, he weaponized the owner’s willingness to spend quite literally any bit of money possible to acquire draft capital. That’s a pretty good start.

But ultimately, we’re going to have to exploit some advantages to improve the hockey team meaningfully.

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Mandatory Credit: ESPN.com

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