By Nick Tricome
Copyright phillyvoice
The Philadelphia Flyers have stressed repeatedly, throughout the past two years and into training camp’s start Thursday morning, that they’re staying on a long-term plan.
They’re trying to preach patience, and they’re trying to ensure they go about their rebuild right.
But elsewhere around the NHL, there are reported stalled contract talks involving major stars, some circling rumors, too. And off on the horizon, there’s that long-fabled summer of 2026, when the Flyers are expected to have some substantial cap space open up and with some very notable names headlining the tentative free-agent list – from Connor McDavid to Jack Eichel and Kirill Kaprizov, at least for now.
Hey, a fan can daydream, and part of the Flyers’ long-term aspirations is to make Philadelphia a hockey destination for free agents again – it’s a reason why Rick Tocchet was brought in to be the new head coach.
General manager Danny Brière, however, wanted to pump the brakes a bit.
The Flyers will get there, eventually, he believes. But the organization still has a lot of internal work to do to make that happen, with a priority on further establishing their young core between rising star forwards Matvei Michkov and Tyson Foerster.
“Well, we’ve said it from Day 1,” Brière told the local media at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees on Tuesday. “We want to become a destination. But, when we do our plan, we don’t plan with the expectation that one of those guys is gonna be free.
“We want to do it to get the team in the right direction, and when we plan, we look at ‘OK, yeah, we’re gonna save some cap space,’ but it could also be for, you know, Matvei Michkov, who keeps getting better and better, and Tyson Foerster, who keeps getting better and better, and all those young guys that are coming.”
But that’s not to say that the Flyers are entirely focused inward.
During last season’s exit interviews, Brière said the team had progressed to a point in the rebuild where the organization could begin looking more into adding to the roster at the NHL level rather than subtracting from it for the sake of collecting future assets.
This past summer marked the start of that shift.
The Flyers went out into free agency to pick up short-term but depth-solifying options in center Christian Dvorak and goaltender Dan Vladar, and swung the trade with Anaheim for Trevor Zegras ahead of the draft the week prior, on the gamble that a clean slate and a change of scenery are what the skilled center needed to return to form.
It was still a measured and relatively reserved offseason approach, and one that the Flyers will carry into the months ahead with a renewed optimism that the team is slowly on its way to getting better.
But if a superstar free agent just so happened to hit the open market, the Flyers do want to have a strong pitch ready, if and when the day comes.
Hey, a fan can dream.
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“It doesn’t mean that we’re looking to go on the outside to do that, but we want to be a destination,” Brière said. “A destination also that our players that are here appreciate what they have and wanna stay here. That’s why we do it.
“Now, if something comes up down the road in 3, 4, or 5 years, and it works, yeah, hopefully, there’s a player that gets us overboard and wants to play here. But most importantly it’s doing it for the players that are here and that they want to stay here, want to keep pouring their hearts out in the offseason to get ready for the season, and be willing to put everything on the line every single game to get our team better and better.”
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