Daniel Briere Gets His Guy and Adds Picks: ‘It was Worth the Chance’

Daniel Briere knew who he wanted. He also knew he did not have to use pick No. 21 to get him.

When the Flyers’ three-minute clock ran out in Round 1 without a selection, they were not stuck in an indecisive spot. They were dealing. Briere sent No. 21 to San Jose, got back picks 27, 62, and 120, and walked away with the defenseman he wanted all along.

“We felt that [Maksim] Sokolovskii was the guy that we could move back and still get,” Briere said Friday night. “The chance to add a couple picks in a year where we didn’t have a lot of draft capital, for us, felt it was worth the chance.”

With the 27th pick, the Flyers took Sokolovskii. He is 17, 6-foot-7, 240 pounds, left-handed, and from the London Knights. He is the biggest player in the 2026 draft class, which is the Flyers’ favorite draft pick, unless they have someone specific in mind. He posted two goals and six assists in 44 OHL games, which doesn’t jump out at you, but he drew comparisons to Nikita Zadorov, and plays with a nastiness scouts can’t measure in numbers. Some had him as high as had him 22nd, but some had him as low as 60th. The Flyers didn’t care about that; he fits a specific need with the team.

“We don’t expect him to be the next big point producer,” Briere said. “We see him as a big physical force, a defenseman that’s going to be tough to face. He could become a top-four defenseman if things fall into place.”

The scouts kept going back to London, and every trip, they liked what they saw more. The skating got better. The puck play changed. He started figuring out when to go for the hit and when to hold back. The stats don’t tell the whole story. He is the kind of player Rick Tocchet loves, and will definitely find time on the Flyers’ defense once he is ready.

“We know there’s a lot of work to be done,” Briere said. “But there’s things that you can’t teach. There’s things that you can’t change. He’s still going to be 6-foot-7 two years from now. The rest of his game has to round out, no doubt about it, but the progression that we saw this season leads us to believe that he’ll be able to make it to the NHL.”

Sokolovskii was born in Petropavl, Kazakhstan, and raised in Yekaterinburg, Russia. He is just the third Kazakh player drafted in the last 20 years. He spent last season with the London Knights, the same program that sent Denver Barkey, Oliver Bonk, Jett Luchanko, and Jack Nesbitt to the Flyers in recent drafts. Briere kept coming back to the intangibles that he already has.

“The complete level is something that, in a lot of cases, you have it or you don’t,” Briere said. “He loves to go after a guy. On top of his size, it makes him a very impressive player on the ice, someone that you don’t like facing.”

Sokolovskii goes back to London next season before heading to the University of Maine for 2027-28. He will not play at the Xfinity Mobile Arena anytime soon. Briere entered the draft with four picks and left the first night with seven, still holding the player he wanted. Smaller puck-movers were available. Briere is not done at that position.

“It doesn’t mean that we’re not going to draft a puck-moving defenseman,” Briere said. “Let’s see what [Saturday] brings.”

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