For as long as he’s been in the GM chair, Danny Briere has asked for patience. He’s seen the hunger of the Philadelphia Flyers fan base to have a contender again. He’s had to resist the urge to do things rashly and for the sake of action. And he’s deserved that courtesy.

He inherited a mess. That was no secret. And he had to spend two offseasons cleaning it up. He had to make the best of a sticky situation with a top-five pick that refused to play in Philadelphia. He had to trade off pieces that weren’t part of the future plan to accumulate assets.

For the most part, Briere’s patience was rewarded. The Cutter Gauthier situation never got out. The Flyers acquired Jamie Drysdale from Anaheim. They acquired 24-year-old Trevor Zegras as another reclamation project. They flipped Sean Walker for a first-round pick. They waited to move Scott Laughton until they got their asking price, another first-round pick and a prospect.

There was reason to believe Briere’s patience would be rewarded again with Rasmus Ristolainen. This appeared to be the best time to move him.

Briere didn’t have to trade Ristolainen on Friday at the deadline. There is still a year left on Ristolainen’s contract to explore a trade and get the targeted value. But by not moving him, you add to the risk that Ristolainen gets injured again, that his value drops, that you miss the window to move him at all.

Ristolainen has been with the Flyers for five seasons. And over that time, he has improved to become a more steady presence on the blue line.

But it’s what Ristolainen’s tenure with the Flyers represents. The end of the Chuck Fletcher era, the GM who acquired him, who left the Flyers in more of a mess than when he started. The overall lack of direction. The lack of identity. The middle of nowhere in the hockey world.

Briere may still be able to get the desired return for Ristolainen in the offseason or even at next year’s trade deadline, if he decides to wait that long. But the pressure to make these types of moves and get the returns right will only continue to mount from here.

Briere has been the GM of the Flyers for three offseasons. His fourth will be his most important and most challenging. The free-agent class the Flyers banked on has dried up. It will take savvy trades to find the cornerstone pieces that the Flyers need to emerge from the NHL’s mushy middle.

Sometimes, those trades are like the one Briere made last offseason for Trevor Zegras or made on Friday involving Bobby Brink and bringing in David Jiricek. Jiricek, like Drysdale, is a former sixth overall pick. Zegras was a ninth overall pick. When the Flyers acquired Owen Tippett in the Claude Giroux trade, he was a former 10th overall pick.

Sometimes a high draft pick just isn’t in the right place or right situation to reach full potential. The Flyers took the chance that they could bring Drysdale along, revitalize Zegras’ career, and they are doing the same with Jiricek, a 22-year-old defenseman who could easily become part of the Flyers’ core going forward if all works out.

Those are the chances worth taking, not the ones where you hold out for the better value. It becomes a game of poker, and you can easily have somebody call your bluff or overplay your hand.

Briere’s patience may eventually pay off. He could move Ristolainen at a later date. He could make more trades that resemble the Drysdale or Zegras or Jiricek deal. He could find that those players become everything they were envisioned to be on their draft day. He could see his own draft picks reach their full potential.

Or his decisions at this deadline could prove to be his downfall. Remember the end of the Fletcher era? Fletcher doubled down on Ristolainen with a five-year extension in 2021, when he could have been a popular trade chip, and was unable to move James van Riemsdyk at the deadline in 2023, days before he was relieved of his duties.

Well, this season, Briere gave Christian Dvorak a five-year extension, thus taking him off a market thin with centers, and didn’t deal Ristolainen at the deadline. Unlike JVR, there’s still time for a deal to come together for Ristolainen. But the pressure is mounting on Briere and this regime, and the actions in the second half of this season look and feel too much like Briere’s predecessor.

The Flyers are about the miss the playoffs for the sixth straight season. They still need standouts and game-changers at every position. And while sticking to your price is admirable and could very well pay off in the long run, it means you need everything to go right to get you to the eventual end result.

That’s the gamble Briere took on Friday. He decided to kick the can down the road to the offseason to make the substantial change the Flyers’ franchise needs. In the moment, it was a disappointing deadline in the midst of another lost season, not in position to buy, and not able to sell enough. It’s the latest in a decade of disappointments.

Briere hasn’t been at the helm for all of it. But he’s been at the helm for long enough that even his biggest supporters will eventually start to lose faith. After this trade deadline performance, and another exercise in patience, the pressure is reaching critical levels.

Kevin Durso is Flyers insider for 97.3 ESPN. Follow him on social media @Kevin_Durso.

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