Flyers Promote Danny Briere to Special Assistant to General Manager

At his recent press conference, it was hinted by Chuck Fletcher that Danny Briere could have a larger role in management in the near future.

That has become official, as the Flyers made the announcement on Tuesday afternoon that Briere has been named a special assistant to the general manager. The promotion was first reported on Saturday by Crossing Broad’s Anthony SanFilippo.

Brent Flahr and Barry Hanrahan are also assistant GMs with the team.

Briere, 44, has been around the Flyers organization for several years in a variety of roles. He’s been a part of player development and handled day-to-day business operations for the ECHL’s Maine Mariners.

"I'm very happy to add Danny to our hockey operations team in a full-time role," Fletcher said in a press release. "His insight and experience from 25 years in professional hockey, as well as first-hand knowledge of the Philadelphia Flyers, is a valuable asset for our organization and I look forward to working closely with him on a day-to-day basis."

"I'm excited for this new opportunity to join the Flyers hockey operations department," Briere said in a press release. "Philadelphia is a place that I've called home for a long time and have had some of the most memorable moments in my career. I want to thank Chuck Fletcher and Dave Scott for their confidence and support over the last several years, and I look forward to helping them continue to build a successful team on and off the ice."

Regarded as a rising star in the management world, Briere was recently interviewed for the Montreal Canadiens’ GM position. After missing out on that job, the Flyers expressed interest in promoting Briere.

“We've had a lot of good conversations with Danny and certainly during the process when he was interviewing with Montreal, we were communicating a lot,” Fletcher said at the press conference on Jan. 26. “Brent and I were trying to help a bit. It was a great opportunity for Danny. But Danny, obviously he's been president of the Maine franchise. Couple years ago, in the 2020 draft, Danny looked at a lot of the potential first-rounders and worked with Brent on kind of that area we were looking at when we drafted Tyson Foerster, so he's been involved then. He's been involved with player development this year. He's been on the bench with [Ian Laperriere]. I think moving forward here, he's gonna have a much bigger role in hockey ops.

"He's a guy, to me, obviously knows the game, played the game, great personality. Very good evaluator of players and I think there's a lot he can add to our group. Again, he has been involved in a lot of the decisions. He's sat in pretty much every big meeting we've had the last two years. So I've enjoyed working with him and hopefully something that can transition to even a bigger role with us going forward."

Of course, Briere also had an extensive playing career in the NHL that lasted 17 seasons, including six with the Flyers. He finished with 307 career goals and 696 points in 973 career games. With the Flyers, Briere had 124 goals and 283 points in 364 games.

Briere also had a notable playoff career with the Flyers. In 68 playoff games with the Flyers, Briere scored 37 goals and had 72 points. During the 2010 Stanley Cup run, Briere scored 12 goals and had 30 points in 18 games.

Briere retired prior to the 2015-16 NHL season and was appointed to his role with the Mariners in June 2017.

Briere isn’t the only member of the Flyers front office to recently get a promotion. On Thursday, the team announced the promotion of Alyn McCauley from pro scout to Director of Player Personnel and Tom Minton from Director of Hockey Information & Video to Director of Hockey Operations.

Kevin Durso is Flyers insider for 97.3 ESPN and Flyers editor for SportsTalkPhilly.com. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.