Flyers fire general manager Chuck Fletcher
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Chuck Fletcher is out as the Flyers' general manager and Danny Briere is in, at least on an interim basis.
The Flyers on Friday fired Fletcher after four-plus seasons as the team's president of hockey operations and GM.
Briere had been serving as a special assistant to the general manager. Briere will join the team in Pittsburgh on Friday.
"Chuck faced significant challenges during his time as president and general manager, including some that were outside of his control, but we have reached a point at which we must move in a different direction and look to the future under new leadership," Dave Scott, chairman of Comcast Spectacor and governor of the Flyers, said in a statement. "Flyers fans deserve a better team than what they've seen on the ice over the past few seasons, and a clear plan to return this team to Stanley Cup contention."
Fletcher was hired in December 2018, a week after the Flyers relieved Ron Hextall from his post as the team's GM.
Philadelphia made the playoffs in Fletcher's first full season as the general manager in the 2019-20 season, finishing fourth in the Eastern Conference and making it to the Eastern Conference Final during the COVID-19 disrupted postseason.
The Flyers, however, never were able to recover. Instead, the train went woefully off the tracks the past couple of seasons.
Last season, the Flyers finished as the fourth-worst team in the NHL with a 25-46-11 record. The season saw head coach Alain Vigneault being fired and Scott saying he would give Fletcher a "blank check" to fix things in January 2021.
"I don't really see this as being a three-, four-, five-year rebuild at all," Scott said in January 2021.
Fletcher, during that same news conference, described it as an "aggressive retool."
Things have since changed.
The Flyers are 25-30-11 with 59 points and are coming off a trade deadline in which Fletcher described the team as "sellers" and then failed to sell its most valuable asset, James van Riemsdyk.
The Flyers did trade for the Kings' Brendan Lemieux.
And now the Fletcher era in Philadelphia is now over.
Scott said the organization will restructure its hockey operations department by separating the president of hockey operations from the general manager position -- meaning the Flyers will be hiring for two separate positions.
The Flyers' chairman claimed in a news release the team understands it will be a "multi-year process" to get back to where it wants to be: a Stanley Cup contender.
"We are committed to doing it right," Scott claimed in a statement, "because we want to put this franchise on a path toward winning the Stanley Cup, period."
As for Briere, the former Flyers great has served as a special assistant in the organization for the past year.
"He is ideally suited for this role," Scott said, pointing to Briere's 25 years in professional hockey as a player and in management.
The Flyers say Briere will help "ensure a smooth transition" with head coach John Tortorella after Fletcher's firing.
