Briere on Flyers Short-Term Deals, Foerster’s Injury, Shabanov

The opening for free agency is a busy day for most GMs, and Danny Briere was certainly active. The Flyers signed free agents Christian Dvorak, Dan Vladar, Noah Juulsen, Dennis Gilbert, and that was only the first hour.

Essentially all of the deals the Flyers made were for stopgaps, and while the term was the key, the price tag was high for most of these mid-level free agents.

“For us, term was way more important than anything else,” Briere said. “But, sometimes you got to give in somewhere to entice those types of players to come in. So we know that the salaries were very competitive, but where it helps us is it keeps the flexibility moving forward in our favor.”

Briere’s two headlining moves were Dvorak, a center, and Vladar, a goalie, two areas the Flyers had to fill during free agency. Dvorak’s one-year deal is worth $5.4 million. Vladar signed a two-year deal with a $3.35 million AAV.

Dvorak will likely slot into the third or fourth-line center role, a natural replacement for Ryan Poehling.

“I’m excited about him,” Briere said. “I think one of the enticing parts for him is the opportunities that he’s going to have. It’s no secret that we’re pretty thin in the middle. [Sean] Couturier and [Noah] Cates really are the only two, for sure. We hope that [Trevor] Zegras can play center as well, but there’s opportunities there for him. Probably more than he would have seen somewhere else, and I feel that that was probably very enticing for him. So to get a big body like that, that can play a 200-foot game, win face-offs for us, I think he makes us a better team, having him down the middle.”

Vladar was among many names that were in a lackluster but populous goalie class. In the moments leading up to the start of free agency, Jake Allen, the prize of the goalie market, came off the board by re-signing in New Jersey. That left the Flyers with either a reclamation project or a backup. Vladar was the pick. And given how the goaltending was last year for the Flyers, Briere sees it as a wide-open competition.

“First of all, he wanted to come to Philly,” Briere said. “And then, we had discussions with a few other agents on different guys, and at first the ask was three, four or five years on the goalie. So it was already a pretty thin market going in. Dan Vladar told us very early on that he saw an opportunity. He wanted to come in and compete in Philadelphia. So we jumped on it. For us again, the most important, ideally, we’re looking for a one-year deal, but we realized that to get some help, we needed to step it up a little bit. But when he told us that he wanted to come, we jumped on it. 

“Our goalie coaches were excited about the package. There’s no perfect goalie that was available out there, but we feel he gives us a chance to come in, compete with our group, and push the envelope, right? He has a chance to become our number one, depending on how he plays, how the other guys play. And one thing at the end of the year, when I met with our group of goalies, I told them, you have to be ready at training camp. I said, we’re probably going to go out, this wasn’t good enough last season, we’re probably going to go out and bring some reinforcements, and you’re going to be in a battle, all of you guys. So it was really clear right from the get-go. And we hope that Vladar comes in and brings a little bit, or a lot of competition to the group, and they have to fight for it.”

Briere expressed confidence that Vladar could at least be part of a tandem, despite never playing in more than 30 games in a season in his career. He also said that the Flyers explored the trade market for a goalie, but prices were too high in a thin market.

Another piece of news that surfaced on Tuesday was a potential significant injury to Tyson Foerster. Foerster, who just signed a two-year deal in May, suffered an injury at World Championships and later had an infection as a result. While initially reported as a bicep injury, the potential remains that Foerster could miss significant time if tests come back and indicate the infection is still present.

“He had an injury at the World Championships that wasn’t supposed to be anything really serious. He came back here, and he had an infection that set in to the elbow and then it just got worse. He came and saw our doctors and decided they had to go in and remove the infection. What I’m finding out is it takes a long time for all the samples to come back negative, and that’s what we’re still waiting on. We don’t know, and at that point, we’ll reevaluate and see if more needs to be done, or if we’re lucky enough that’s the end of it. Then he can move on and be ready for the start of the season. But there’s no guarantee of that. We’re sitting and waiting right now to see how serious it is or not.”

Briere said the team did not make any moves around the news on Foerster because they don’t know the duration of the recovery. It’s at least expected that he returns during the season, so they don’t need a permanent replacement. In the meantime, Briere said he expects other internal options could step up and fill in. One name Briere dropped was Porter Martone.

Finally, the Flyers are awaiting results of the Maxim Shabanov sweepstakes. Widely viewed as a favorite for the Russian winger, Shabanov is still in the process of making a decision among several finalists. Briere is hopeful the 24-year-old chooses the Flyers.

“I get excited when I’m being told that he’s signed with the Flyers. It just hasn’t happened yet or appeared on my desk yet,” Briere said. “I’m still waiting on that. We’re waiting and we’re hopeful. We were told that we’re one of a few teams that he’s considering still, but we have no inkling of which way he’s leaning at this point.”

One thing Briere did manage to do on day one of free agency was maintain flexibility for the future. Short-term deals, with only Vladar’s being a two-year deal, allow the Flyers to provide the team with some new faces and see where things go before potentially diving into free agency in another year with way more cap space.

“We’re excited because we made the team a little better and that’s the goal,” Briere said. “We wanted to give the players something to chew on and to be excited a little bit that we’re more competitive, and now it’s up to the players to take the next step, but we wanted to start helping them. I said it from day one, we didn’t have enough cap space to go after the big fish. But it’s small steps that are not hurting us for the future. It keeps the flexibility for the future, but at the same time It brings some hope and shows the fans and players on the team that we’re taking steps forward.”