Briere says Flyers need rebuild, but won't commit to fire sale

Interim Philadelphia Flyers general manager Daniel Briere sees a long road ahead for the organization to get where it wants to be, but he isn't interested in a complete teardown.

"We have to be careful. I want to make sure that 'rebuild' doesn't mean fire sale," Briere said at his introductory press conference Sunday, according to ESPN's Greg Wyshynski.

"There's a big difference between the two. So I want to make that clear. We're not going to get rid of everybody. We have some good players here, some players that are in certain roles that we're going to keep as well."

Briere was handed the reins to the front office Friday after the club fired Chuck Fletcher, who held the GM position for four-plus seasons. The Flyers only made the playoffs once under his tenure, and Fletcher drew plenty of criticism over the past two campaigns for a long list of transactions that failed to keep Philadelphia competitive.

Fletcher brought Briere aboard as a special assistant in 2022. The former Flyers winger doesn't believe his lack of experience running an NHL team will be an issue.

"There's no doubt in my mind that I can do the job," he said. "I'm going to have some great people around me as well. It's not something that I'm going to do alone. I'm not gonna lie: It's something that I saw myself doing from early on when I was playing. I always believed that I could be in this position one day."

The Flyers have won only two of their past 10 games and sit 26th in the league standings with a 24-31-11 record.