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Tag: Danny Brière

  • Flyers acquire defenseman Maxence Guenette in trade with Ottawa Senators

    Flyers acquire defenseman Maxence Guenette in trade with Ottawa Senators

    Trader Danny is at it again.

    On Monday, Flyers general manager Danny Brière pulled off yet another deal, shipping veteran defenseman Dennis Gilbert to Ottawa for defenseman Maxence Guenette. Both players were playing in the American Hockey League.

    The move sees Gilbert, 29, return to Ottawa, where he finished up last season after being dealt by Buffalo at the deadline in the Dylan Cozens-Josh Norris trade. The Flyers signed the rugged blueliner to a one-year, $875,000 contract on July 1 to provide defensive depth, especially given that Rasmus Ristolainen was expected to miss the first few months of the season while recovering from triceps surgery. Gilbert had one assist and six penalty minutes in six games for AHL Lehigh Valley.

    In Guenette, the Flyers are getting back a 24-year-old defenseman with good size (6-foot-2, 209 pounds) and mobility. Ottawa’s 2019 seventh-rounder, who has played eight career NHL games, has spent the majority of the last four seasons playing for the Belleville Senators in the AHL.

    An offensive defenseman, Guenette tallied nine goals and 23 points last season in 58 games. In 236 career AHL games, he has 27 goals and 116 points, twice leading Belleville’s defensemen in scoring, He had a career-high 40 points in 2022-23.

    Guenette, a restricted free agent, has not played yet this season and signed a one-year, two-way contract with the Flyers following the completion of the trade. PuckPedia says that the contract is worth $775,000.

    Monday’s trade is the fifth deal — most of them minor league transactions — executed by Brière since September. Last month, the Flyers traded Samu Tuomaala for Christian Kyrou. Kyrou has brought instant offense to the Phantoms’ blue line with a goal and nine points in seven games. Carl Grundström and Tucker Robertson, two other players acquired in recent deals, are also contributing regularly with the Phantoms.

    Brière also has pulled off bigger deals in his two-plus years as Flyers general manager, including a shrewd move for Trevor Zegras in June and previous subtractions and future-centric moves involving Ivan Provorov, Scott Laughton, Cutter Gauthier, Jamie Drysdale, Sean Walker, Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, and Kevin Hayes.

    Don’t be surprised if Brière has a few more trades up his sleeve ahead of next offseason, as a once-promising free-agent class has all but evaporated and made a trade the most likely route if the Flyers are ready to try and acquire a star or bolster their options down the middle or on the blue line.

    For Trevor Zegras, the trade to the Flyers is not just a refresh, it is also a homecoming of sorts
  • Flyers GM Danny Brière provides injury updates on Rasmus Ristolainen and Oliver Bonk

    Flyers GM Danny Brière provides injury updates on Rasmus Ristolainen and Oliver Bonk

    After an off-day on Sunday, the Flyers hit the ice Monday for practice in Voorhees, and there was a big piece missing.

    Defenseman Travis Sanheim did not skate, and when asked if it was a maintenance day, coach Rick Tocchet said, “Kind of, yeah.”

    “Just dealing with a little tweak here and there,” he added. “It’s better [for] us to just keep him off the ice. He’s played a lot of minutes.”

    In his ninth NHL season, Sanheim ranks second among all NHL skaters in ice time, averaging 26 minutes, 28 seconds. He only trails Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks.

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    The blueliner, who does not skate on the power play, does play against the opposition’s top line and kills penalties.

    “Just whatever’s asked of me, whenever they need me to go out there,” Sanheim said on Oct. 19. “I’ve got the lungs to do it. I recover pretty good. So just whatever they kind of ask [of me].”

    Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim, who ranks second in the NHL in ice time, has one goal and four points this season.

    Ristolainen update

    Rasmus Ristolainen is inching closer to a return.

    “In Risto’s case, everything’s coming along nicely,” Flyers general manager Danny Brière said on Monday of the defenseman, who has been skating on his own. “Pretty soon, we’re hoping he starts practicing with the team.

    “I don’t know how far away that is, but he’s progressing well, and everything’s going well. We’re hoping next month, in about a four-to-six-week range, hopefully he’s back with the team.”

    Ristolainen has not played this season after undergoing surgery on a right triceps tendon rupture on March 26. In 2024, Ristolainen underwent two surgeries, including a repair to a ruptured triceps tendon. According to Brière in April 2025, the injury was similar, although he wouldn’t confirm if he tore the tendon again.

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    Before the start of training camp, the GM announced Ristolainen was expected to miss the first six to eight weeks of the season. It sounds like he is on track.

    The Finnish defenseman played in 63 games last season, with four goals, 15 points, and the first positive plus-minus of his career (plus-3) while averaging more than 20 minutes. One of the Flyers’ top blueliners, Ristolainen, who also played on the power play this season, last played on March 11.

    Bonk update

    It’s been weeks since prospect Oliver Bonk has been spotted on the ice. The 20-year-old, who just turned pro, is dealing with an upper-body injury that kept him from participating in the rookie series against the New York Rangers in early September and training camp.

    Flyers defenseman Oliver Bonk will make his professional hockey debut this season.

    “Things are not moving … as quickly as we expected,” Brière said on Sept. 16, adding that he underwent medical imaging that morning despite skating with the rookies in a noncontact jersey.

    Unlike Ristolainen, his timeline is still to be determined. But the hope is for the highly touted blueliner to get back to action soon.

    “As far as Oliver, we didn’t know how serious it was at first. We’ve kept him out of rookie camp, and it lingered. We kept him out of main camp, thinking that it would get better, and it’s been a slow process with his upper-body injury,” Brière said on Monday.

    “But it’s going well now. We’re just hoping that there’s no setbacks. We’re trying to give him the time and proper space between skates for him to feel good enough to come back and play. It’s a little tougher on a timeline with him. We’re kind of waiting on the progression and making sure there’s no setback on him.”