The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Daniel Briere

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Daniel Briere, General Manager of the Philadelphia Flyers, joined Jeff Marek to discuss the recent trade, logistical issues in getting Kuzmenko and Pelletier to Philadelphia, his time in Buffalo, and a whole lot more...Shout out to our sponsors!👍🏼Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/Reach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Uh, first of all, Danny, thanks so much for doing this. Second of all, when are you getting your guys? Do you know when Chris Benko, Pelleche are finally going to show up in Philadelphia Flyers uniforms here? Hey Jeff, well we might need you to come play a game or two until they arrive. Well I'll tell you Danny, if you want a knock-kneed skater who overhandles a puck around his own net, I'm your guy. I'm your guy all day long.

Stay by your phone, my name phone my game might say your contract oh no it's it's it's been it's been frustrating we've been trying to get him in there's so many things going on things that you know I never thought I'd have to deal with or be involved with you and getting visas for players to play for your team. But unfortunately it's out of our control. Today we thought everything was falling into place and then the flights that were supposed to come in for those guys got cancelled and pushed back. So it's just one thing after another and it looks like we won't have

them again for the game against the Capitals tonight. You know I would imagine when you go into any deal you figure okay anything cross-border there's gonna be some type of issues and you sort of mentally prepare for that but can you describe what your last week has been like trying to to get your your new players into into Philadelphia? Yeah, well, before we made the trade, our assistant GM, Barry Hanrahan, who handles a lot of the legal stuff and immigration, warned us. He says, guys, just so you know, it might be a few days before we're able to get the

visas in place. It's a little complicated. He said, but it's nothing out of the ordinary. We've done it in the past. And just be prepared that it might be a couple of days. So we knew going in, but now we're on day six, I think, and we're still having issues. So like I said, we're at the mercy of the, uh, sure.

US immigration. So we have to wait and, uh, whenever they're, they're ready and give us the green light, um, the players will be able to play. Uh, I'm curious about, um, why Calgary, why these players specifically? I would imagine that in your, you know, course of conversation with various managers around the NHL, when, you know, names like Farabee and Frost are being mentioned, there are teams that perk their ears up. What was it about the Calgary situation that was, you know, that sort of pushed this one over the edge and got you to a point where you said like, yeah,

this is the right deal for Philadelphia. Yeah, well, it's more than just, you know, nowadays, as you know, with the salary gap, it's more than just the players. For any teams to be able to take on those contracts, they needed to have room and have room in the future as well. That made the discussions really tough with any teams because not a lot of teams have extra cap space to take on those contracts. You know, Faraby has terms left and Morgan is going to probably get a raise to be able to fit

that in. So we had a lot of different talks with different teams, but it's, you know, everywhere it seems there's different sets of problems. Peltier is a player that we had talked about previously, even going back the last year. So they knew we liked them. And then Kuzmenko, there's different reasons for that. Obviously, the player is having a chance to see him upfront and getting to know him more

on a personal level and see if there's a future and see if we want to resign him and keep him aboard. But there's also the fact that his salary kind of fit in because we have to take some salary back from Calgary so they could add the player. So there's a lot of little things kind of turned to Yebel because of it. You know, one of the things that I think, and I certainly wondered this too, by bringing in Kuzmenko, one of my thoughts was not that I think that, you know, Michkov needs a babysitter or anything, but some familiarity for a rookie is always important. You know, I mean, back when you were still playing back in 2006, I remember the Thrasher's bringing in Alexei Zhitnik with Ilya Kovochuk in that situation.

Yeah. Is that part of this deal, the idea of like trying to make Michkov a little bit more comfortable? I think it was an added bonus to it because, you know, obviously we're trying to bring in a high end goal scorer, someone that can bring us some offense. So, you know, there's not a lot of those guys available as you're coming near the end of the season.

The teams that are in the playoffs, they wanna keep those guys usually. You know, and also getting to know Kuzmenko on a personal level off the ice and like I mentioned previously, the contract situation. On top of it, you know, the fact that they've played together before was an avid bonus, but it would be nice if those two can find some chemistry together and get it going. You know, one of the things that I, and I think a lot of people wonder about this, like the second round pick, you understand, like that's a, you know, you make a, choose a player in the second round, that player should play for you. I want to ask you, I want to ask you about the seventh.

So work with me here. Where does the seventh come from? Like could this deal have been done, you know, in the first round? I want to ask you about the seventh. So work with me here. Where does the seventh come from? Like could this deal have been done without the seventh round pick? Like how does how do you look at this deal and say like okay you know what? Still going to take something else. How do you settle on a seventh? Like the presence of that one is intriguing for me.

Danny, work with me here for our listeners slash viewers. The presence of the seventh round pick, where does that come from? You know what? And I know like the late picks are, you know, a swing. That's what we call them. They're a swing. Sure. And sometimes, you know, it's one extra player that your scouts really love that that player has something to offer, but you know, a lot of other side of his game are not quite there yet. So it's another swing down the road for us. Um, you know, I understand from the outside, you're like, well, seven

round picks barely ever make it. But for your scouts, they're fun because like I said, you take a swing on someone that someone likes somewhere. Now, so who knows? There's a lot of seven round picks that had wonderful career. And it could be also something down the road when we're a good team and you need a pick to send somehow for a player to bring us debt. That's also where those picks usually go. Who knows?

It's in the future. It's down the road. We parked it for now. I don't know how it's going to be used if we're going to trade that pick for an asset down the road or if we're just going to pick that player for a swing. But it's a nice little added bonus. So when you say swing, I'm guessing you mean you're going to turn to one of your scouts and say, okay, this is your passion pick.

Who are you passionate about? Take this one. This one's yours. Is that what it is? Yeah. And it's not just one scout. It's, you know, we put it on the table and you say, you know, is there someone that really has something to offer out of the ordinary, ordinary that, you know, could end up being something special. That's usually what you see with the late picks. Um, you know, but, but I mean, you know, it's a swing because that, that player usually is missing some traits to become an NHL player, but as one thing that he

does really special that, you know, if he figures the other parts of his game could turn out to be a good player. Okay. Um, I want to play something for you just for your reaction. Now I love talking to managers, managers, like I love talking to coaches, players, et cetera, but they have like sort of narrow views of what their place and position is in the game at that moment. Managers have the bird's eye view. And so I always appreciate talking to managers.

So Brian Burke is on the show every Friday and last week we were talking about a trade, Danny from 15 years ago. Okay. This is a Dion Faneuf trade. Friday and last week we were talking about a trade, Danny, from 15 years ago. Okay. This is a Dion Faneuf trade. I'm just curious your reaction to, I'm curious your reaction to all of it, but specifically sitting on a deal for 48 hours.

Here's Brian Burke from last week. It was a fun day. We made that deal. Darrell Sutter and I shook on that deal on Friday. And we said, well, we can't, I have to meet with the ownership and that So if you get two guys hurt, we're making the same deal. No way. Yeah, we did it side on seed. We shook hands on a deal over the phone. The Friday, I made the deal on Sunday. Okay, so that's a seven player deal made on a Friday. All seven players played on a Saturday.

The deal was consummated on a Sunday. General Manager of the Philadelphia Flyers, Daniel Brier, would you even contemplate doing something like that? I don't know about 48 hours, but I'll be honest with you, this trade, because we didn't have enough players, both Craig told me the same thing. We started talking, you know, and moving forward Thursday afternoon. And then right around game time is when we finally agreed to it. But I was like, it's too late. I mean, we don't have any extras.

I need the players to play. Yeah. And he says, well, I'm in the same situation. I have one extra, but I need at least one to play. situation I have one extra but I need at least one to play so he pulled Kazmenko and then during our game now you know you're like okay please guys don't no rough stuff just keep it honey outside you know don't get hurt and then Morgan Frost and ended up leaving the game in the second period and it was the worst feeling because now you're like, okay, what happens now if he's really hurt?

Where do we go now? So luckily for everyone, Morgan was fine and there's no issues. And then we're watching the game and at that time I called Craig and he says, is Frost okay? I said, yes, it's all good. Don't worry. It's just, you know, we're taking our precautions, we're not going to let him back out. So he goes, well, I'm pulling Pelletier,

so he went out and pulled Pelletier after the first period. And then we're watching our game and the game is going on and we're in the third period on our end because we're two hours ahead of the Calgary time and Torz has, John Tortorella has Farabee on the ice, late in the game blocking shots, or just tringing for every ship he's taking. So it was pretty funny. It's an awful feeling to be in. And I was also questioning what happens if someone gets hurt. I just don't know.

I don't know where we would have gone after that. Fascinating. As the trade deadline approaches, um, you know, I think we, we wonder about all teams and the moves they're going to make. And, you know, last year was an interesting one for, uh, for you in the Philadelphia Flyers. It was, uh, it was a surprise season for many, maybe even surprised yourself. Um, but this is a team that was very much in it all, all, all the way along.

And leading up to trade deadline, it was almost as if the Flyers were saying, maybe even surprised yourself. Um, but this is a team that was very much in it all, all, all the way along. And leading up to trade deadline, it was almost as if the Flyers were saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then yes. Um, as you look at this year's trade deadline, where's your head at? Where's the Philadelphia, where are the Philadelphia Flyers at as, you know, four nations on the horizon after that, it's allies to deadline. Where's, where's Danny Brear at on Deadline this year?

Well, you hope you guys get on a little run, but we've put ourselves in a much tougher place than we were last year. Last year at this time, we were inside the playoff bubble. We were one of the eight teams. Right now know you get to look at and say I think we're six points out at the moment but you also have to leapfrog six teams. It's not like you're chasing just one or two teams. So

we're in a much tougher position than we were last year. Like I said you hope your guys get on a little run here and gets you back in the playoff position. But it's going to be a much tougher run if you want to make one this year. Does it seem, last trade deadline question, does it seem like prices are extremely high this year? That's what I keep hearing. Prices are so high. They're so high.

Are they? I don't know. It's tough to tell. I'm not too sure. We don't have any free agents to get rid of. You know, when teams are calling us and they want some of our players for the stretch, all of our players are either restricted free agents or

they have term to their contract. So for us, yeah, there's a lot of value into that. That player is still going to be with the team next year. So I think there's more value to those players. Let me ask you a manager's question in the NHL right now. I mean, for anyone who's watching the comings and goings of managers over the last 10 or 15 years, there's a real trend that's happening. And I'll just run down a few here as an example. So you're 47 years old. Chris Jury is 48. Ken Hughes is 55. Eric Tulsky is 50.

Julianne Breesbois is 48. Kyle Dubas is 39, Chris McFarlane is 54, Patrick Alveen is 50, Craig Conroy is 53. Once upon a time in the NHL, as you all know, I mean this is the NHL that you played in, generally the managers were in their 60s and the coaches were in their fifties. Now it seems as if managers are in their fifties slash late forties and coaches are in their early forties, late thirties. Danny, we talk a lot about the NHL getting younger on the ice.

We can make the same case about managers and coaches off the ice as well. Like does it not feel to you over the last 15 years that, I mean, there's something like, listen, Lou is, Lou and the island is, you know, 80 years old and then he's a, an outlier and all of this, but does it feel very much like the whole industry is getting younger at every single level, not just players, but managers and coaches too?

Yeah. Like you mentioned, there's definitely a trend there. Um, you know, but, but for me, me, the exciting part is who I'm surrounded with. Key Jones, who's had a lot of hockey experience and have seen different facets and was at ice level for so many years. Bob Murray is part of our staff. He's been a GM in Chicago and Anaheim for years talking about someone that you know I can I can call in you know bounce ideas off and

you know he puts on his GM hat is really really helpful Dean Lombardi same things won a couple cups in in LA so having those guys around makes things a lot less scary for me being surrounded by guys like that. So I don't know how it is around the league elsewhere, but I know I have a really strong team around me and guys that have been in my shoes. And we haven't even talked about Bobby Clark, Paul Holmgren, Billy Barber. Alumni, yeah. So you know so I'm very fortunate. I have a lot of great mentors around to guide me

you know and make sure I'm not doing anything crazy or too stupid. So it's I feel like I'm very very very very fortunate. Let me ask you about Matvey Michikoff. Um, thoughts on his progress so far? Like no, nobody jumps into the NHL like an Olympic diver, uh, without a ripple in the water, like that, that just doesn't happen. Uh, your thoughts on where Michikoff is at right now? It's, it's going wonderfully.

Um, you know, people might look at it and it's been a little bit of a tough stretch for him lately. He came out with a swing. He showed us what he's capable of doing. The reality is it's a tough league. It's the best league in the world. He's probably not used to playing 82 games. I know he's not used to playing 82 NHL games, playing almost every other night with no breaks. So we're extremely happy. I'm so happy that he came in early. The chance to work with our coaching staff and working with a tough coach like John Tortorella,

he's learned so much. It's so much fun to watch him work. He works hard. If people are paying attention, like he's out there, it's not like he's throwing the towel and not working hard. He tries to block shots. He back checks hard. He's strong on the puck.

Just lately, yeah, the league maybe has caught up to him a little bit. His legs are not quite there. He's realizing that, but he's still working. And I think the future is so bright for him we're really excited about him. Speaking of the future I did wonder Danny that when you made the deal with Calgary and opened up a center position my first thought was okay they're not gonna block Jet Luchenko that's as if they're saying to Lechenko, okay, you want it? There's a spot here. Try to take it.

Am I on base or off base? Well, jet is going to decide that. Um, I mean, it's no secret that, um, we're really impressed with him. Yeah. And he came into training camp and he played like he was a 32 year old veteran right at, from the get go. Um, you know, we started really well. played like he was a 32-year-old veteran right from the get-go. He started really well.

He probably deserved to stay in our lineup, but we wanted to give him the chance to go back and play a lot of minutes on his junior team to keep pushing his offensive game, to be part of Hockey Canada at the World Juniors. That was the reason why we sent him back. I know he's gonna be ready for next training camp and it's probably gonna be a really tough decision to make on him to see, okay, is he ready to take the next step or does he need more time? But there's no doubt that, you know, he's gonna get a longer look. Let me close by taking you into your career

here really briefly and man you played some great hockey when you were with the Buffalo Sabres. I mean man and that was one of those that was one of those teams you're just like ah they're so close to being a cup team so close to being a cup team. I want to ask you about a couple of things with the Sabres but when you think back to your time with Buffalo under Lindy Ruff what are some of the things that come to your mind? I can ask you about one incident specifically but when you think back to your time with Buffalo under Lindy Ruff, what are some of the things that come to your mind? I'm going to ask you about one incident specifically, but when you think about your time with the

Swords, what comes to your mind? Well, what comes to mind is how Lindy coached us. When I got traded, I got to share this little story with you. When I was traded from Phoenix to Buffalo, I remember some of my friends calling me, telling me, Oh my God, you're done. You're basically done. Buffalo is a team that wins games, one nothing and two one, because they remember, you know, Dominic Hasek in the late nineties and early 2000. So when I got traded as this coach, only coached defensively, he doesn't let

his players play offense and you're never gonna thrive there. So at first I was really worried and I remember my first conversation with Lindy and he says, we want you to play, we want you to take chances and go for it. And I realized really early on that Lindy was really open-minded. We traded for Chris Drury

and we had guys like JP Dumont, it was offensive. We had Max Afenaghenov who was coming in, Derek Roy who was coming in, Thomas Banach, Jason Pomodolo, these are the best of gods who were coming in. And Lindy, to his credit, he came in the room one day and I still remember that he says, guys, I don't mind you guys taking chances, but if you turn the puck over, I don't want any looping. He says, you put the brakes on and you back check hard. And if you do that, I'll let you do whatever you want

and take risk and take chances at the blue line. And it was so refreshing to hear that from a coach. And it was probably the opposite of what anybody thought of Lindy Ross at the time. He coached a team that he had. I'm still convinced that poor Ryan Miller would have had better stats if he had a more defensive team than guys like myself turning the puck over at the blue line, offensive blue line all the time, but you know, he saved her. But night after night, Ryan Miller was such an amazing goaltender that, you know, on a different team probably would

have had crazier stats than he put up. We were fortunate to have him. So that's kind of the thoughts that I have when I think of my Buffalo Sabres days. Okay. Let me take you to, to one specific moment. I want to close on this one. Take you to one very specific moment. Whenever I'm asked about the biggest body checks I've ever seen, there's a,

there's a laundry list, but right around the top of any list that I ever talk about for greatest hits that I've ever seen, you had ringside for, and that is Brian Campbell and R.J. Umberger, Sabres versus Flyers. And Brian Campbell is not, like he's not, no one's gonna confuse him for Dustin Buffland ever, but what went through your mind

when you saw the Campbell-Umberger hit? I think at first it was like, uh-oh, we're going to wake up the sleeping giant. You know, and going into that series, we weren't supposed, like the way the last few games played out, we were supposed to play, I think, it looked like we were playing the Rangers or the New Jersey Devils in the first round and there was a small outside chance we were going to play the Flyers. So we were very happy about that. We were not experienced. We were a young team that made our way there and then all of a sudden, boom, we have to

play the big bad Flyers in the first round and it was scary. I think we win game one in double overtime and all of a sudden game two, I think it was game two that Ryan had the big hit on RJ Umberger and it was like, uh-oh, did we just wake them up? But at the same time, we realized that we could play with them. We had to go back for game three and four in Philly and we got creamed. We weren't even in the game. They really took it to us. And we had some tough decisions to make when we came back for game

five and back in Buffalo. Were we really the team that was coming on or were we going to bow down and let the big physical team like the Flyers take over? But there's no doubt that physical team like the Flyers take over but there's no doubt that that was one of the hardest skips I've ever seen. You know, I give Suppy a lot of credit for staying in there and keep playing and not back down. You know, it was definitely one of the big turnovers in that series and made us realize that, okay, maybe we have a chance to play with the contenders. It was an amazing, amazing time. It was a big one. Listen, we'll let you go on that one. Danny, thanks so much for stopping by and sharing your thoughts with me today. Much appreciated. Good luck against the Washington Capitals and good luck the rest of the way.

We'll check back soon. Thanks, Jeff. Always fun to be with you. All the best. My pleasure. Cause you can call it a ride I went to the dark man He tried to give me a little medicine I'm like nah man that's fine I'm not against those methods But I knew It's me, myself and how this Gonna be fixed in my mind

I do wanna break it I turned on the music I do wanna break it The Daily Face Off Live crew is hitting the road and going live on location from both Montreal and Boston for the Four Nations Face Off, bringing you exclusive coverage straight from the tournament. From February 10th till 20th, we've got live shows every weekday breaking down the biggest stories, key matchups, and covering all the action as it unfolds and you won't want to miss a second. So make sure you're subscribed to the Daily Faceoff YouTube channel and follow us on all our social media platforms to stay locked in. We'll be bringing you insider analysis

on the ground coverage and maybe even a little chaos because it's international hockey and anything can happen. Hit that subscribe button, turn on your notifications, and we'll see you live from the Four Nations Faceoff.