There are certain dates in Flyers history that have served as benchmarks for new eras. May 11, 2023 is now one of those dates, with new Comcast Spectacor chairman Dan Hilferty bringing in Keith Jones as the club's president of hockey operations and officially handing the general manager's chair to Danny Briere with the removal of his interim title.
The Dawn of a New Era: Jones and Briere added to Flyers Front Office
A new era in Philadelphia begins with the addition of Keith Jones and Daniel Briere to the Flyers front office
Some may wonder what this means in the grand scheme of things. Primarily, it means the team's hockey operations department is now being led by two people who understand that the Philadelphia Flyers have a history of being a marquee franchise not just in the National Hockey League, but one with worldwide recognition, and share a common goal of getting them back to that point. But at the same time, they enter this quest with a fresh set of ideas on how to achieve it - one that is different from past internal philosophies and in tune with the current realities of the NHL.
Criticism is out there that the Flyers have again hired two former players to run their hockey operations. The reality is that such a status is merely semantics. For starters, Briere played 364 games for the team, but played 609 games for four other teams. Jones played 131 games for the Flyers and 360 games elsewhere. The majority of both of their careers has consisted of exposure to other organizations.
When it comes to working connections to the Flyers hockey operations of the past, they are minimal for Briere and non-existent for Jones aside from anecdotal relationships. Briere helped with player development for a couple years after retiring in 2015, but mostly focused his efforts on learning the business side before fully turning his attention to the Maine Mariners, the ECHL team that Comcast Spectacor owns in Portland, Maine. He did not join the Flyers in a hockey capacity until a little over a year ago, in February of 2022. Briere had focused on a variety of special projects until being named interim GM, most notably working with the Flyers analytics staff to take a one-on-one approach to analytics with Travis Konecny, a trailblazing approach never taken before by a Flyers executive. That is the type of management most likely to grow and continue under Briere's watch.
On Jones's side of things, he has been the team's primary television analyst for the past 23 years, and he did that so well that it earned him extensive national television work, right up to becoming NBC's top hockey analyst. The job involves recognizing the team's strengths and flaws, and Jones has not been shy over the years about pointing out things he thinks the Flyers need to do better. His national work has exposed him to nearly every team in the league on a regular basis, so he has seen a lot of what works and doesn't work in today's NHL in other cities. There is no doubt that he will take the best of what he's seen over those two decades and work to implement those practices and philosophies into the Flyers' hockey operations department.
When examining the areas for which each will be responsible, it presents itself as the best of both worlds. The approach that Briere and Jones take to their respective roles is going to be virtually the same as any outsider would take as far as connections to the past are concerned - in that those connections aren't going to be much of a factor. At the same time, they step into these roles with a thorough familiarity of where things are right now with this team and thus are able to take action to move it forward immediately, rather than having to spend months or a season learning who everyone is and evaluating players and staff. Plus the Flyers do have "outside" voices, in the traditional sense, in the form of John Tortorella and his staff, almost entirely new last year; Valerie Camillo and her staff on the business side, mostly new within the last four years; and Hilferty, who signed on in February, overseeing the entire company.
In regards to experience, there's a notion out there that prior time in these exact or supporting roles should be a prerequisite. That is not necessarily the case, especially considering individuals who played in the NHL, which gives them unmatched experience in and of itself. But also in what they've done to this point off the ice, Briere and Jones have gathered much more knowledge and experience that can be translated into their new jobs than may be immediately apparent. They have both been around the NHL for two decades, with Briere having the added experience of running the Mariners. To whatever extent they feel they need help in certain areas, they either already have people in place on the current staff or will undoubtedly add people in areas where they need support.
And that takes us to the recent notion of "wise men" and advisors controlling things and keeping the Flyers like they were in the past. All of that is a myth. The Flyers have very active and passionate alumni, some of whom have worked for the team. But the idea that alumni are sitting around in Voorhees telling people what to do is pure fiction. Yes, they are available for opinion on a given topic if anyone asks for it. Anyone in any business leadership position will turn to people they trust for advice on any given situation, and any Flyers executive or staffer would be foolish not to reach out for pertinent advice from two people who have combined for nearly 100 years of service to the organization because of some false perception that they have a level of influence that they don't. But make no mistake - final decisions on anything, whether made by Briere, Jones, Hilferty, Camillo, or Tortorella, will be made by those individuals or that group alone.
So here, on May 11, 2023, is a new regime. It's one that Flyers fans should be excited about, with a fresh approach taken by front-facing leadership with which fans are familiar. It truly is the start of a new era, one that won't be established overnight, but will come relatively soon. If all goes well, it will be one that adds to the rich history of the organization and starts snapping droughts, one by one, until reaching the ultimate goal of the Stanley Cup. That's why this group gets up every day, and they'd like to have everyone along for the ride.
