VOORHEES, New Jersey — The question hadn’t fully escaped the reporter’s mouth before Philadelphia Flyers general manager Daniel Briere cut him off.
If another team was interested in the Flyers’ No. 21 pick in this year’s draft, and the Flyers could get a player in return, would that be something…
“Absolutely,” Briere interjected Tuesday, during the annual pre-draft media conference with assistant general manager Brent Flahr. “Everything is on the table. It has to make sense.”
And pulling off that sort of bold move — presumably for a player who could give the young, improving Flyers a boost next season and beyond — makes more sense now than at any point during Briere’s three-year tenure.
To be clear, Briere and the Flyers are not looking to trade the pick either alone or in a package for a past-his-prime player that would only be able to help the club for a season or two. The organization is not “quite there yet” when it comes to executing that kind of transaction, Briere said
“I’m not too keen on trading future first-round picks because you never know where it can go, and we’re not a Colorado or Carolina at this point, where you know you’re going to be finishing (high) and picking late first (round),” Briere said.
If it’s a star-level player in his prime who could be available, though, at a premium position such as center? The Flyers are going to get involved as much as they can, and that evidently includes dangling their first-round pick this season.
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The Flyers are already keeping tabs on the Red Wings’ Dylan Larkin and, according to a team source, have an ear pointed towards Toronto if Auston Matthews becomes available. Other players are surely on their radar — Buffalo defenseman Bo Byram, a player they’ve been interested in previously, could now also be on the move, per Darren Dreger — but a high-end center, in particular, would conceivably turn the Flyers from a bubble team into a club that would be fully expected to make the playoffs again in 2027.
They’re in a decent position to pounce, too, thanks to the methodical work Briere has done since he took over the big chair.
Briere made it a priority to restock the Flyers’ system over his first three drafts. They’ve taken 12 players combined in the first two rounds over that span, including Porter Martone, Matvei Michkov and Denver Barkey, who have already arrived and are likely to be key parts of the future.
There are others now on the doorstep, too, or at least approaching it. Oliver Bonk made his NHL debut this past season; Jett Luchanko, Spencer Gill and Jack Berglund are set to turn pro, and the 2025 draft class, in which the Flyers took five other players after Martone over the first two rounds (and eight players total), will be a collective year older, too.
Briere touched on that latter group on Tuesday.
“Starting with Porter, we didn’t expect him to come up and help us down the stretch, get into the playoffs, and the way he played in the playoffs as well was very impressive,” Briere said.
“(Jack Nesbitt) is developing. He’s going to be tough to play against. … He’s making the move to (the University of Michigan) next season which is exciting to see, and hopefully he can keep bulking up. (Carter) Amico took a big step in the second half last year going to Muskegon (USHL). It was refreshing to see him skate and play the way we kind of foresaw before. It was pretty cool to see him take a big step in the second half. And then the other guys are exciting, too. (Jack) Murtagh, (Shane) Vansaghi and (Matthew) Gard all had decent seasons last year.”
Briere’s strong belief when it comes to the trade market is that players who have already been selected and developed a bit are more valuable than just numbers on a draft board. Now that there are so many prospects in the Flyers’ system, he acknowledged that he’s more willing to dangle picks in this year’s draft than he was previously. The 2026 third-round pick they sent to Toronto as part of this week’s trade for goalie Joseph Woll is evidence of that.
It comes down to simple numbers.
“All those draft picks that we’ve had in the past, we have to make room for them eventually. They have to play,” Briere said. “Having only four picks this year, I’m OK with because we’ve drafted so much the last few years.”
Briere didn’t say it, but the Flyers are in a better position to pull off a big move than, say, the Minnesota Wild, who are also seeking a top-line center but have already parted with a number of future assets for players like Quinn Hughes.
Not only could the Flyers move that 2026 first, it stands to reason that in the right deal for the right player, they’d be willing to part with one or more of those prospects they’ve already drafted, too — while still having a solid stable for the future, including a pair of first-round picks in the 2027 draft that Briere mentioned on Tuesday that he’d like to retain.
Publicly, Briere and others — including team governor Dan Hilferty — have stressed that the club will remain patient if it must. Young players should keep improving, and the current group will already know what to expect from coach Rick Tocchet when they all reconvene in September.
The last thing that the Flyers want to do at this stage of the rebuild, at a time when there is finally some genuine excitement about them in the city again, is over-promise and under-deliver. There’s still a distinct possibility that players around the league who end up being available either aren’t attractive to the Flyers, or they won’t want to move to Philadelphia.
But Briere and the Flyers also won’t want to let genuine chances to meaningfully improve pass them by — something Briere isn’t reluctant to let everyone know.
“The one area we’d like is to find a No. 1 center,” Briere said. “Where we’re picking, we’re probably not going to find a No. 1 center.”
