Briere to miss 2-3 week with wrist injury
Flyers center
Danny Briere will miss 2-3 weeks of action for Eisbären Berlin with what is being called a wrist bone bruise, according to German-language site
Eishockeynews.de.
The injury is said to have occurred yesterday, in Eisbären's 3-1 win over ERC Ingostadt. Briere scored a goal in the third period to trigger a three-goal outburst for Berlin after the team trailed at the second intermission. He also left the ice and went to the locker room at one point after taking a hit along the boards.
There is no reason to doubt that Briere has a legitimate injury. However, it should also be noted that his recovery timetable matches up to when Briere would return to the Flyers if and when there a settlement to the current lockout. As such, it seems more like a "better safe than sorry" situation than cause for concern.
Eisbären has an outdoor game coming up next week. They will be playing the host Nuremberg Ice Tigers in the first edition of the DEL's version of the Winter Classic. While such games are immensely popular with fans, the cold and wind also make them a groin pull waiting to happen for older veterans (no one was surprised when the especially susceptible Jaromir Jagr went down in the Winter Classic last year).
Assuming the injury description is accurate and is nothing more serious, Briere will either be available to the Flyers for the start of an abbreviated season or else can return to Eisbären with the stretch drive and playoffs looming shortly thereafter. In the DEL, the playoffs start by mid-March.
Earlier this week, Briere signed a contract extension with Eisbären for the remainder of the season. The deal, of course, has an out-clause in the event of an NHL settlement.
**********
Buyout Offer Has Snider's Fingerprints
Call this an educated guess: Flyers chairman Ed Snider had something to do with the NHL's offer of a one-time salary cap compliance buyout (AKA amnesty clause) to the Players' Association. Beyond being something the NHLPA wanted, it's something that benefits the big-market, big-budget teams in general and the Flyers in particular.
It is a very poorly kept secret that a group of members of the Board of Governors let it be known to Gary Bettman that another canceled season is a non-option to them. While Snider has always been a staunch Bettman supporter, he is also a business man.
The Flyers are one of the big boys in the NHL, and Snider is one of the BOG's most powerful and influential voices. The Flyers are a profitable franchise (both in terms of net revenues from its hockey business and long-term franchise value worth). Corporately, they are also part of the Comcast empire, which of course also includes NBC Sports.
As such, it is probable that Snider and other big-market owners were the driving force in getting the NHL to offer up the buyout provision in the league's latest offer. The small-market teams may hate it, and think it gives an advantage to the big-market teams. However, they won't vote against a CBA because of it.
Quite frankly, much of the current lockout has been driven by the NHL's concern (and small-market owner squawking) that the cap floor has become untenable. The little guys have collectively said that dropping the floor dramatically without moving the ceiling down too would still leave them unable to compete.
In some ways, the smaller-revenue teams want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to spend in line with being lower-revenue franchises and still compete with the teams that actually generate the money for the league. The NHL itself also recognizes a need to prevent big market teams from putting team with more precarious finances into no-win situations.
The ultimate example took place this past summer, with the lockout looming. I'm talking about the situation the Flyers put Nashville in with the Shea Weber offer sheet. The Predators had no choice but to match it in order to save face, but it was a financial poison pill that required the team's owners to pay Weber's signing bonuses out of their own personal wealth in order to protect their franchise investment.
The bonuses, of which another big installment is due next summer, had to be paid regardless of whether there was a 2012-13 season or not. From a non-sports world financial and risk-management standpoint, it was a no-brainer NOT to match the offer sheet. The Predators' owners were guaranteed to take a bath on it. But from the standpoint of not waving the white flag on being a competitive team, the Predators had no other choice but to match.
In my estimation, the fear of being "Webered" is part of what has kept the small market teams pretty much unanimously aligned on the hardline side of the lockout -- including the no-buyout stance -- throughout this protracted process.
The CBA that the NHL has pushed for helps these clubs more than the big market clubs that were doing OK even when there was no salary cap at all and doing even better with the growth experienced under the 2005-2012 CBA.
Then again, didn't the Minnesota Wild of all teams just sign Zach Parise and Ryan Suter to eye-popping long-term contracts as UFAs? Some of these little guy clubs aren't nearly as poor and defenseless as they and the league claim when CBA time comes rolling around.
Nevertheless, the big market owners aren't about to complain about keeping seven percent more of their own revenues via trimming the percentage of hockey-related revenues that go to salaries from 57 percent to 50 percent.
At the same time, Snider and other big-market clubs aren't about to see Bettman cancel another season in the name of protecting smaller-market teams. They want a deal, and they also want something else in for their franchise's benefit. That's where the amnesty provision comes in.
The one-time buyout would NOT have to be used during the shortened 2012-13 season that would be played after a CBA agreement is reached. Rather, it could be used over the summer as teams get ready for the adjusted cap ceiling that would kick in for 2013-14.
From an NHLPA standpoint, meanwhile, the amnesty clause is a big win. Bought out players get a huge sum of money PLUS they become unrestricted free agents immediately. For a team like the Flyers, the ability to hand-pick a salary to take off the cap -- and the flexibility of having until the summer to decide on whom to buy out -- would also be a gain that came out of the lockout.
Three buyout candidates
On Twitter yesterday, I jokingly called the compliance buyout proposal the "Ilya Bryzgalov gets one more season to satisfy the Flyers clause." There is no way the Flyers would buy out Bryzgalov's contract right now; not when their only other options in goal would be Michael Leighton or signing someone like Rick DiPietro (who is a lock to be bought out by the Islanders out of sheer necessity after all his injuries and on-ice struggles).
After this season, however, the Flyers will have more options if they are still not satisfied with Bryzgalov's level of consistency on the ice or his ability to avoid alienating teammates. The two go hand-in-hand. When Bryzgalov plays well and the team is winning, it's easy to just grin and say, "Let Bryz be Bryz."
It's not the "universe" stuff that's the problem. Rather, it has been a periodic tendency to throw teammates (especially his defensmen) under the bus. It's a perceived lack of receptiveness to coaching. It's the various dramas that surround him, which to be fair, aren't entirely of his own making.
The organization hasn't done the best of jobs in preventing such situations. Muzzling Bryzgalov and limiting media access failed last year. Even when Bryzgalov transformed from happy/goofy to surly and monosyllabic, he remained as much of the story as the team's play itself.
Early last season, he media ate up Bryzgalov's off-the-wall commentaries because it makes it for easy copy and colorful soundbites. Later on, when he shut down and basically stopped talking, win or lose, that became too much of the story.
Even when Bryzgalov set a new franchise shutout streak record, teammates had to answer questions such as "Do you think Bryz is happy? He seems miserable."
I will never forget Kimmo Timonen's reaction when asked that question twice. He smirked and said (not a verbatim quote but similar) after a long pause, "Look, I can't talk for him. He seems happy when he's around us. Maybe he isn't happy around you guys. But we're winning games, and he's playing great. So I'd say he's happy. We're all happy. I'd be even happier if we can talk about the game."
The bottom line with Bryzgalov is this: If he's the player who opened last season with stellar wins over Boston, New Jersey and Vancouver and the one who was NHL's Player of the Month in March (before sustaining a chip fracture in his right foot that appeared to still affect him in the playoffs), he's not going to be bought out. He'll be the Flyers goalie for years to come, and everyone will just have to live with the inevitable hiccups and periodic dramas.
Conversely, if Bryzgalov is the inconsistent player he was for much of last season, the team will cut its ties to him this summer.
Apart from Bryzgalov, Chris Pronger is the most obvious candidate for a buyout this summer. If it won't be Bryz, it will be Pronger.
As far as I know, there has been no serious discussion of changing either the long-term injured reserve rules, eliminating the over-35 contract rule or adding a career-ending-injury exemption to the next CBA.
Assuming this is correct, barring a buyout this summer, Pronger will have to be placed on long-term injured reserve each season until the end of the 2016-17 campaign. If he were to retire, he'd forfeit his remaining salary AND his cap hit would still count against the Flyers. So it will either be a buyout of Pronger, which will take his salary off the Flyers' cap immediately, or it will be four additional seasons of LTIR.
The downsides to LTIR: Pronger will not be able to retire with dignity, and his salary will still count on the team's summer cap. Ultimately, it will depend on whether the new CBA changes the existing rules. If the regulations change, Pronger would leapfrog Bryzgalov as the buyout priority even if Bryzgalov struggles during the shortened season.
There is a third candidate whom a minority would prefer to see bought out: Danny Briere. The reasoning there is that he carries a $6.5 million cap hit (pre-adjustment for escrow and make-whole) through 2014-15, is 35 years old and his regular-season production declined last season.
However, Briere's playoff value alone makes a buyout unlikely. He is the NHL's number one playoff scorer since 2005 and had another strong playoff run (8 goals, 13 points in 11 games) last season. People who get too concerned about his defensive shortcomings seem to forget that a) plus-minus ratings do not include power play points, and b) most of the time, plus-minus is more reflective of team (or least three-man-line, defense unit and goaltending play) than individual play.
Briere is far from a Selke Trophy candidate, but his presence alone isn't something the team cannot overcome defensively. He's actually worked very hard to improve over the years. When you figure in his offensive capabilities, his defense is adequate the majority of the time, depending on the matchup. Even when he's at a five-on-five or four-or-four disadvantage, he often makes up for it in other ways.
Beyond his playoff scoring value, Briere also carries major locker room value. He is such a positive presence, who leads by example and by speaking up when necessary. Off the ice, Briere is among the veterans who is most likely to step up and help young players gets situated and feel like members of the team. That does not happen in every city.
Briere is also one of the organization's best off-ice ambassadors. You won't find a more approachable, friendly, caring human being in the sports world than Briere. He represents the team admirably in many different capacities, and that absolutely carries weight when it comes to personnel decisions.
The only way I could see any chance of Briere being bought out rather than Pronger or Bryzgalov is if the team misses the playoffs AND he has additional injury issues that render him ineffective. Barring such as a disastrous scenario, I think he's built up enough "organizational cache" to be retained for the duration of his contract.
****************
Today's blog ran long, so I will fold the usual farm system and Europe updates into a weekend-in-review blog coming tomorrow and Monday. Sunday's blog will focus on the Phantoms and Titans as well as Team USA and Shayne Gostisbehere at the World Junior Championships. Monday will be devoted to the current Flyers players in Europe and non-WJC junior players.
Kindle users: Please sign up for Flyers Buzz. For more information
click here.
Click below to follow me on Twitter:
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»