By rule, compliance buyouts are allowed to be filed 48 hours after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals, which means Ilya Bryzgalov’s and Danny Briere’s walking papers are surely official by now. The two of them are no longer Flyers, and cannot re-sign with the club even though they become free agents along with everybody else on July 5.
Bryz won’t be missed. People will forget that he set the franchise record for consecutive shutout minutes in 2012, his only lasting legacy on the ice in two seasons of dressing in Orange & Black. Instead he’ll be remembered most of all for being a space cadet on HBO’s ‘24/7,’ his constant feuding with the Philadelphia media, and the insane buyout it took to dump him.
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Briere is a different story. He spent six seasons with the Flyers, racking up 283 points in 364 regular season games. True, he could be a liability at times in his own end, but he was always a threat to score or create chances for teammates. By all accounts Briere was a gentleman off the ice as well, and somehow always knew the right thing to say whether it was after a tough loss or in general.
But where Danny Briere really built his Flyers legacy was in the postseason. We know this because when we asked you to share your favorite Briere moments, time and time again they were from the playoffs. There was the time he gave Buffalo netminder Ryan Miller a “love tap” on the head after beating him in a Game 7 in 2011. There was his goal to tie the score in Game 7 in Boston when they were coming back to win the series from down 3-0. That was in 2010 during their run to the Cup Finals, where he found twine to temporarily give Philly the lead in Game 6, although that didn’t quite have a fairy-tale ending.
Briere led the NHL in postseason points that year with a whopping 30, and he might have done so a few more times had the Flyers been able to go deeper more often. In all, No. 48 logged 37 goals and 35 assists in 68 playoff games here – better than a point per game. The man really knew how to turn it on when it counted most.
Not just turn it on, but take over. The Bullies posted a 21-10 record in playoff games where Briere lit the lamp at least once, 5-1 when he found the back of the net twice. They were 13-24 when Briere failed to get on the board. In the 2011 postseason, the Flyers didn’t win a single game where he wasn’t able to score. That’s the sign of a true difference maker right there.
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Those were the best Danny Briere moments – any time he was scoring big goals in big games – because that’s what he does best. October through the beginning of April, Briere was a nice player. He always saved the best for last though, when the Stanley Cup was on the line.
That’s when Briere will be missed. With a $6.5 million cap hit that was the highest on the team, his numbers in steep decline and injuries on the rise as he closes in on 36 years of age, amnestying Briere made total sense. The Flyers had to do it. But man, what you wouldn’t give to have him on your side for one last Cup run, because if you could count on one thing from Briere, you were going to see a whole lot of that trademark fist pump along the way.
