But, perhaps the most satisfying moment was what Briere didn’t do to the Rangers.
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Caelan, 17, Carson, 15, and Cameron, 14, all go to St. Augustine Prep in Richland. “First and foremost the priority is going to be the boys and the family….” Among players with at least 100 post-season games, he’s 32nd, just behind the likes of Maurice Richard, Brett Hull and Steve Yzerman.
His kids, though, were a bit torn. His $6.5 million cap hit, mounting injuries, advancing age, and relatively modest remaining salaries in the final two years of his frontloaded contract made him the team’s most obvious amnesty buyout candidate along with Ilya Bryzgalov. “To cheat. It is important that I come home to this”.
We wish you the best in retirement, Mr. Briere. “On the one side they wanted me to keep going – there’s a lot of perks of having your dad play in the National Hockey League – but on the flip side they wanted to have me at home”. He fought for his possessions, for his place in front, for his scoring opportunities.
The two-time All-Star finishes sixth on the Flyers’ all-time playoff points list with 59 and is fifth among all-time Flyers with 1.06 points per game in the playoffs.
Perhaps the greatest example of that was his goal and assist in Montreal’s Game 7 win over the Boston Bruins in 2014.
Three goals for the Flyers, three goals for Briere in the 3-2 victory.
“There’s many things I’d like to do moving forward”, said Briere, who lives in Haddonfield and plans to marry his fiancee, Misha, next summer. I was yelling at the referee, who was Stephen Walkom, all the way up the penalty box.
“I’m a big fan of the game, and in the future, I hope to stay involved somehow in the hockey world”, he said.
He scored a wraparound goal that keyed Philadelphia’s last true championship run. An immensely popular player while in Springfield in the late 1990s, Briere announced his retirement this week.
Briere began his career with the Coyotes, playing 258 games for the franchise, but never really standing out.
He was a 30-goal scorer five times and had a career-high 95 points in 2006-07 for the Sabres. Briere was also responsible for one of the shootout goals that helped secure the Flyers playoff position that season, beating Henrik Lundqvist and the Rangers in the final game of the season.
Briere thanked Flyers owner Ed Snider, team president Paul Holmgren and former executive Peter Luukko.
Briere, 37, recorded 307 goals and 389 assists for 696 points with the Phoenix Coyotes, Sabres, Flyers, Montreal Canadiens and Colorado Avalanche. Booed with such ferociousness, he had to tell his mother to stop coming to games.
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A 17-season career is over for one of the Flyers’ best playoff performers ever.
