GM Danny Brière talks coaching search, goalie situation, and the Flyers’ readiness to add in free agency

Danny Brière has a bunch of things to do before he can put his feet up and enjoy the summer months. Speaking to the media on Saturday afternoon, the Flyers general manager wrapped up his second season at the helm and looked ahead to what could be a busy couple of weeks.

Here are four questions he addressed at his end-of-season press conference:

Less than a month ago, Brière and the Flyers handed coach John Tortorella his pink slip, but the search for his replacement has yet to begin in earnest.

While Tortorella is known to be a demonstrative coach who demanded accountability and pushed his fair share of buttons, Brière did like the foundation the bench boss laid. He just wants a new voice.

“I don’t think there’s very many options that are going to be as demanding as Torts,” he said, while noting that “anybody that comes in will seem a lot milder.”

» READ MORE: Danny Brière and the Flyers have to get the timing right on hiring a new coach.

Several names have swirled around the Flyers for weeks, from veteran voices like Rick Tocchet, who would only be available if he and the Vancouver Canucks cannot reach an agreement on an extension, to Peter Laviolette, who coached the Flyers from 2009-13, and was fired by the New York Rangers on Saturday. If the Flyers want to go the college route, they could consider Western Michigan’s national championship coach Pat Ferschweiler. A source tells The Inquirer that Denver’s David Carle is not expected to be a serious candidate for the job.

And there’s one name within the organization that has piqued some interest: interim coach Brad Shaw. After being handed the reins when Tortorella got fired, the Flyers went 5-3-1. As Brière said, “Some guys really stepped up and seemed like they were a little freer” under Shaw, who had previously been in charge of the defense and penalty kill.

Shaw knows he’s not Tortorella. He famously said after his second game at the helm, “I just think my personality is lighter than Torts’, and I have a lighter hand in how I go about my business.“

It seemed his approach brought out the creativity and skill the players had buried inside. Philly averaged 3.89 goals under Shaw after posting 2.74 in the 74 games under Tortorella.

Now, Brière is looking for a coach who can carry that forward and tap into the high-level skills of guys like Travis Konecny, Matvei Michkov, Tyson Foerster, and Owen Tippett, not to mention some of the fast-rising prospects.

“Communication and teaching are probably two things that will be at the forefront of our next coach,” he said. “When you have a young team in place, I really think those two attributes are extremely important.”

Brière would not lay all the Flyers’ woes at the skates of his three netminders, Sam Ersson, Ivan Fedotov, and Aleksei Kolosov. And that is fair, as the team struggled in front of them with its structure and defense. But there is no denying the organization needs something to change after posting the NHL’s worst save percentage at .879.

“The goalies did not play to the expectations we had,” he said. “But there’s a lot more issues that go into it. I’ve talked to all the goalies. They know they have a lot to prove, and it’s not going to be good enough to come back at the same level. If we have a chance to improve, we’re going to have to seriously consider it.”

With top prospects Carson Bjarnason and Egor Zavragin still a few years away from claiming the Flyers’ net, the GM confirmed there is a chance they will look outside the organization to improve between the pipes.

The biggest question, however, is around Kolosov. Called up from Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League at the end of October when Fedotov appeared to fall out of favor with Tortorella, he spent the majority of the season with the Flyers. However, he only played in 17 games, winning five, and clearly needed more marinating in the AHL. He posted a 3.59 goals-against average and .867 save percentage, and, while athletic, often struggled with the speed and traffic of the NHL.

“I can’t, unfortunately, get into very much detail on Aleksei,” Brière said. “It was a tough year for him, there is no doubt about it. But he says he learned a lot. He wasn’t quite happy with the year that he had, but he feels that he learned a lot.”

This season, Rasmus Ristolainen played in his first opener since being acquired from the Buffalo Sabres in July 2021. Unfortunately, he might not make it two in a row.

“It was a little freaky, but right after the trade deadline, he had to get checked, and they figured out that he needed to go under the knife for another surgery on his arm,” the GM said. “He’s going to be out until probably the early parts of next season, unfortunately.”

Ristolainen played in 63 games, collecting four goals, 15 points, and the first positive plus-minus of his career (plus-3) while averaging more than 20 minutes a night. One of the Flyers’ top blueliners, who also got time on the power play halfway through the season, the Finn last played for the Flyers on March 11. In the game against the Ottawa Senators, four days after the trade deadline, he put three shots on goal across 18 minutes, 2 seconds.

Last season, the defenseman skated in only 31 games, making his debut Nov. 25 because of an undisclosed lower-body injury and then suffering an upper-body injury in mid-February, which caused him to miss the rest of the way. Ristolainen underwent two surgeries, including a repair to a ruptured triceps tendon last April.

According to Brière, the injury this year was similar, although he wouldn’t confirm if he tore the muscle again. Ristolainen had surgery “two or three weeks ago.”

First off, Brière did have some talks throughout the season with his four pending restricted free agents — forwards Tyson Foerster, Noah Cates, and Jakob Pelletier, and defenseman Cam York — and expects to ramp things up now that the season is over.

But just because they are expected to remain in the fold, there shouldn’t be any complacency here because “we’re at a stage now where we’re going to shift a little bit from subtracting from the roster into trying to start to add and help the team.”

» READ MORE: Matvei Michkov isn’t satisfied despite an impressive rookie season: ‘I could have scored more’

Some of the additions will come from prospects set to compete for jobs. Forward Denver Barkey and defenseman Oliver Bonk, currently leading London through the Ontario Hockey League playoffs, are set to turn pro next season, and young talent like forwards Alex Bump, Jett Luchanko, and Nikita Grebenkin, and defensemen Helge Grans, Adam Ginning, and Emil Andrae are pushing to make permanent leaps into the NHL.

“Guys cannot be satisfied with where they are, and I think when you start creating that internal competition, it forces them to take the next step,” the GM said.

Then there are the external factors.

The Flyers have 11 picks in this June’s draft, with seven in the first two rounds and eight in the top 70. It’s a lot of players to select and a lot of contracts to sign in the coming years, if they use each one. The luxury is that the Flyers are in the driver’s seat.

“It’s possible we use all picks, but there is a good chance we look at different things,” Brière said. “It could be acquiring a player. It could be packaging to move up. It could be pushing picks back to other years. … It’s powerful to have so many picks like that. I think a lot of teams will want to have discussions with us and make some things happen.”

Then there is all the cap space the Flyers opened up with the trading of Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, and Scott Laughton. They didn’t expect to have this much money to play with until next summer.

“There’s a little bit of a window to add from the outside. We’re not going to be able to fix every problem, but it would be nice to be able to, if the situation is right, to add a player or two to come in and help on that front. That also should help [us] taking a step forward,” he added.

And what about a good ol’ offer sheet — because who doesn’t love chaos?

“It is a tool that we are going to look into,” Brière said. “It has to make sense, and the thing is when you go down that route, you have to overpay normally for a player. I don’t know if we are that flush with money that we can really be all that aggressive, but we’re certainly going to take a look at it if it makes sense.

“We will consider it.”

» READ MORE: Flyers exit interviews: Sean Couturier felt ‘pushed aside’ by John Tortorella; Cam York excited to play ‘freer’