Briere made trade with money in mind for the Flyers’ future

Flyers GM Danny Briere
VOORHEES, N.J. – As Flyers general manager Daniel Briere rebuilds his team, he has to keep one eye focused on the hockey rink and the other on the cash register.
It would be nice if the Flyers suddenly found their game, tore through the final 30 games and somehow made the playoffs.
But that was the farthest thing from his mind as he traded away two popular players and brought in two semi-strangers from the Calgary Flames in a deal finalized late Thursday night.
Briere has to be realisic about where things stand and logic told him he had to unload one player who’s already making a lot of money (Joel Farabee, with two-plus years left on a $30-million contract) and one who’s about to make a pretty good chunk of change (Morgan Frost, whose two-year, $4.2-million deal ends at the end of this season.).
On the flip side, the Flyers are bringing in Andrei Kuzmenko, whose two-year, $11-million deal is set to expire at season’s end, and Jakob Pelletier, whose $800,000 contract also goes by the boards when the season is over.
So on the surface, these moves appear to fit right into Briere’s long-range plan.
But that doesn’t mean the Flyers are giving up on this season. On the contrary, Briere hopes Kuzmenko and his old pal from Russia, Matvei Michkov, find some of their old chemistry when it was on display in the Kontinental Hockey League.
“It’s not giving up on this season,” Briere insisted during Saturday morning’s media session at the Flyers Training Center. “Kuzmenko has proven to be a game-breaker before. If there is some chemistry there (with Michkov), who knows what happens?”
The thing is, if the Flyers continue to fall even more out of the playoff picture, Briere could make other moves before the March 7 trade deadline.
Plus, potentially he has more salary cap space to work with after taking Frost and Farabee off the ledger.
“The biggest thing in all of this is the cap flexibility this gives us moving forward,” Briere said. “Maybe not this year per se but moving forward, it’s no secret, especially in Joel’s case, the cap hit moving forward was tough. Most of the discussions we had, teams were not willing to take on his full salary.
“Especially with the terms latched on it. Morgan was also close to getting paid a lot more money. So, it goes back to the development of the players.”
There is a bit of intrigue with Kuzmenko. He’s 28 but has only played in the NHL for four seasons.
Briere said he would given Kuzmenko a good look at the end of the season if he went to free agency. Now Briere gets to see if Kuzmenko fits into the system for a possible future with the team.
“As far as Kuzmenko, we get to see what he is,” Briere said. “He had a really good year two years ago. Last year, had a really rough start but came on in the second half. Again (this year), a slow start but he’s been coming on lately.
“So it gives us a chance to see a little bit of him from here on out. See if he can boost our offense a little bit down the stretch.”
Losing Frost, one of the team’s top three centers, won’t be easy to replace.
“Ideally, we would have liked to add another center (in a trade),” Briere said. “But in this case it did not come through. We felt that the value we could get at this point was more than anywhere else.”
Briere confirmed the Flyers were concerned about the sub-par seasons both Frost and Farabee were experiencing.
“We’ve admitted we’re part of a rebuild. We’ve got a lot of draft picks the last few years. The players around them have really taken a step forward. (Owen) Tippett, (Tyson) Foerster, (Bobby) Brink, (Noah) Cates.
“We’re a little different than we’ve ever been. We have a lot more prospects coming in. Young guys developing. We felt there were guys going by them (Frost, Farabee). We had higher hopes for Morgan and Joel. Maybe just two years ago. No secret Joel was struggling. Morgan has had an up- and-down season. It’s not giving up on the season. But really, this was a move for the future. Not so much about competing this year, the way I look at it.”
The GM admitted making these kinds of trades isn’t easy.
“But it’s the job that I have,” he said. “I’m here to make the tough decisions. And that’s certainly one of them for me on a personal level. Those two guys were great around the room. They certainly weren’t any problems in the locker room.
“We thank them for what they did for us. It was a really tough trade to make but the cap flexibility, it gives us a chance to do something. Moving forward for years to come, it will give us cap flexibility. It gives us some possibilities going into the offfeseason. It cracks open the door a bit.”
One thing to keep an eye on is a possible Michkov-Kuzmenko pairing on the power play, which has struggled for years.
“We’re intrigued by it,” Briere said. “We certainly want to give it a try. Hopefully he can help us there.”
Right now, the Flyers can use all the help they can get.

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About Wayne Fish 2701 Articles
Wayne Fish has been covering the Flyers since 1976, a stint which includes 18 Stanley Cup Finals, four Winter Olympics and numerous other international events.