The end of a drought couldn't come soon enough for Danny Briere.
How fortunate for him to be on the ice with almost five minutes left when the Devils pulled goalie Marty Brodeur.
I didn't think Briere played well enough Sunday in New Jersey to void his slump, but I felt over the month of March, as a whole, he had done the right things but kept hitting iron or opponent's sticks off blocks.
At the morning skate, coach Peter Laviolette said he had every confidence that Briere's slump was going to end.
All it took was a timely cross-ice pass from unselfish Jakub Voracek to see it happen. Now it turns out, Briere and Lavy sat down the day before.
“Peter had a pretty good talk yesterday," Briere said. "Gave me a lot of confidence with the talk that we had. I have to give him a lot of credit for the way he made me feel coming into tonight’s game.
"It was a good feeling. Playing with Jake, too, I’m hoping that we’re able to build something. You have to give a lot of credit to Wellwood, too. I thought Eric played tremendous. He was skating, created some chances, was first on the forecheck all over the ice.”
The goal broke Briere's 23-game skid. Pressure relieved. BTW: Lavy wouldn't discuss his meeting with Briere, either.
“Well, I went through the same thing my first year [here]," Briere said. "You come in with a big contract, there’s lots of expectations, you put a lot of pressure on yourself and you want to perform.
"You know how passionate the people of Philadelphia are and you want to give back. And sometimes it works against you, so I know how hard it was for him to fight through it, but you have to give him credit for the way he’s been playing lately.”
Actually, he had a very good first year with the Flyers in 2007-08. Got off to the third, fastest start as a Flyer in team history with 7 points in his first three games. Briere had 16 goals at the mid-point and finished with 31.
It was his second year that was a wash as he battled groin and abdominal issues plus surgeries that saw him play just 20 games with 11 goals.
But he's been a playoff performer and with his drought ended, you should expect Briere will be ready to make a difference again this spring.
That so many things are finally clicking for the Flyers on a lot of fronts, is encouraging, especially, in net where Ilya Bryzgalov continues to baffle us with his turnaround.
"I think confidence has a lot to do with it," Briere said of Bryz. "He just needed to get in a groove. We saw it before the shutout streak. He was playing well.
"I go back to the two games that we lost in Edmonton and San Jose where he played great, we just didn’t give him any goal support. So, he’s been going on for at least three or four weeks now that he’s been playing well.”
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»