May 14, 2026
James Lang/Imagn Images
That last ovation from the home crowd meant everything to the Flyers.
Danny Brière made it a point to acknowledge that last ovation.
The Flyers had been swept. Carolina had just beaten them 3-2 after overtime of Game 4 in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, bringing a breakthrough run that had Philadelphia fully believing in the team again, after years of having little reason to, to a close.
But just not before the fans that packed Xfinity Mobile Arena showed the players how much it all meant as they lined up to leave the ice for the final time.
The fans applauded the players, they cheered, they echoed "LET'S GO FLYERS" chants through the building, and at the end, they saluted captain Sean Couturier with one more held roar of his name.
And Brière, as the general manager who has been steadily working to bring this team back up over the past several years, wanted to make sure it was known: That meant everything.
"We always ask a lot of our fans, and we ask them to invest in the team and spend money and time to come and see us," Brière said Wednesday to start his end-of-year press conference at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees. "What they did last game was truly, truly amazing, and I want them to know that.
"Our players took notice of that. I probably had seven or eight guys in my exit meetings that specifically mentioned how the fans reacted at the end of the game. The comment that kept coming back was that they knew how special it was to play in the playoffs in Philadelphia, but they didn't realize how special it was. The fans really made it that extra special, and I wanted our fans to know that.
"What they did, our players noticed."
But Brière is also hoping that a lot more elsewhere did, too.
The Flyers are "back on the map now," as Couturier and head coach Rick Tocchet mentioned in the immediate aftermath of Game 4 last Saturday.
And they have a lot more going for them now, certainly much more than they did just a couple of years ago, when Brière was intent on selling regardless of the team's performance to garner whatever youth and draft stock he could.
"The good thing is we're in a good spot as far as the salary cap goes, as far as our [draft picks] go, as far as our prospects go, so there's a lot of upsides there," Brière noted.
And now they have Porter Martone in their lineup, who so far looks like a future star, Alex Bump and Denver Barkey, too, as two skaters in their early 20s who the organization never expected to reach and thrive within the NHL so quickly, and then Matvei Michkov, who still has all the skill and looks hellbent on coming back next year a much better player.
That's appealing. In the offseason, the pitch of a talented and on-the-rise team is an easy hook to sell, even if Brière was sure to stress that he's still holding to the slow and steady approach to team-building that he's held to ever since he was promoted as the full-time GM.
"If there's an opportunity to jump on something that can help us, yeah, it's my job to look at everything," Brière said. "But I don't feel that I'm forced to make a move just to make a move because we've made it into the playoffs this year. We've said it for a long time, we wanted to build a team that's gonna be here for a long time, not just to go for it for a year or two.
"So that's still the same approach on my end."
But maybe that approach, after a lot of eyes saw the team breakthrough and then dispose of the Penguins in the first round, gets just a bit easier going forward.
Maybe it isn't so far-fetched anymore to sell Philadelphia as the place to be in the NHL, as a destination.
It's hard to ignore how exciting the Flyers are now moving forward.
After all, the players already on the team just saw everything that the playoffs in the city can actually be. Others around the league had to have seen it, too, and veteran winger Travis Konecny was pretty open when he spoke on Tuesday about trying to do his part.
"One thing I can tell you is just talking to different GMs, this year compared to previous years, I didn't hear as many, 'No, I can't send them your way because of trade protection.' I didn't hear as much of that, which was nice," Brière said. "Obviously, I can't talk to players on other teams, so I don't know exactly how they feel, but just talking to our players, the feeling is that, yes, it's an exciting place to be.
"They realize, even before, they knew how well they were treated here. But now that we have a team that's fighting for a playoff spot, a team that's on the upswing, I think that has them excited, and I assume that players around the league are taking notice of that as well."
Still, it doesn't seem to have Brière in any more of a rush to make something happen. Patience is still his virtue, and maybe now with more eyes latching on to Philadelphia, it got just a bit easier to stay that way.
"You know, our young players are taking some of those spots. It's not like we have a lot of holes that we had the last few years," Brière said. "Just coming down the stretch, you look at adding three players in Bump, Barkey, and Martone, who didn't start the year with us, but I have a hard time imagining our lineup without them. I can't remember what it was like not having them there to be able to use. Just those three names coming late in the season and filling up roles, your lineup looks a lot better all of a sudden. So it's not like we have a lot of holes to fill, but you're always looking to improve a little bit...
"Yeah, I think we're probably more of a destination than we were even a year ago."
Because seeing playoff hockey in Philly again made it a much easier sell.
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