Sam Donnellon | CUPBEAT

OF THE THREE centermen signed for big bucks in a quick and frenzied free-agency shopping spree earlier this month, only Daniel Briere does not already have his name etched into the Stanley Cup.

What you have to figure out is whether that is a good thing for the Flyers or a bad thing.

"I think it's really important," Briere yesterday said at a press conference held at the Flyers SkateZone in Voorhees, N.J. "I want one, too. They have theirs. So they should let us get through."

He laughed easily, fully aware that the joke is on him. Should Scott Gomez and Chris Drury not deliver Stanley Cups championships for the New York Rangers, there will be no insults or innuendo about their playoff mettle or lack thereof. Only Gomez, 27, has won two Cups with the Devils already. Drury, 30, won one in 2001 with Colorado, and has a diamond-etched reputation for playing his best hockey in May and June.

Briere? He's on that long list of near-miss guys, most recently this past spring, when his top-seeded Buffalo Sabres - who included Drury - lost the Eastern Conference finals to Ottawa in five games after the Rangers gave them more of a challenge than expected in a second-round matchup.

What's this say? Maybe nothing. After all, Drury was on that Sabres team, too. He rescued Buffalo in a pivotal fifth game in the semifinal round against the Rangers by scoring with 7.7 seconds left in regulation, but like Briere, was held to three points in Ottawa's five-game mastery of the Sabres.

"I think we just weren't able to get on that roll in the playoffs," Briere said. "You look at a team like Ottawa that started slow and played better and better and better. They came into the playoffs on a roll and they had a lot of confidence. We started very strong. And after a while, we knew we were going to win the Eastern Conference and there's a little letdown. And we just weren't able to get back to the same level that we had before Christmas."

Or, as Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren said: "It's not how good you are, it's when you're playing good."

OK, but again, isn't that part of what Briere is expected to do here? Isn't he supposed to show the younger guys how to win? Isn't that why he wore the "C" in Buffalo?

"Leadership is not about screaming and yelling," he said. "It's what you do on the ice and the way you carry yourself. I'm not going to be any different here. I'm going to be the same guy I was when I played in Buffalo and in Phoenix. More experienced maybe, but the same.

"You look at our team now, there are a couple of other captains coming from other places as well."

Quite true. Jason Smith was Edmonton's well-respected captain. Kimmo Timonen captained Nashville last season. Even Flyers alternate captain Derian Hatcher had the role with Dallas. Steve Downie, projected to make the team as a fourth-line center, captained his junior team.

Only Hatcher has his name on a Cup.

Good?

Or bad?

"I was thinking about that the other day," Flyers coach John Stevens said. "The thing that I'm really excited about is that these guys are still really motivated and they've developed that playoff grit. They're coming here to fulfill their dream. They have some pretty good experience with failure.

"I think the experience they have in not getting there and the experience they've had and the motivation they have to get it done will be good for us."

Said Briere: "The last couple of years we've had the chance to go pretty deep in the playoffs. And I've had the chance to gain a lot of experience in that regard, playing playoff hockey and figuring out what it takes to get to the next level."

He thinks he knows now. The Flyers are banking on it, not just for next season, but seven more after that. Yesterday, Flyers president Peter Luukko spoke of the importance of establishing a core group, how successful Flyers teams from each of the club's previous three decades had that in common.

He failed to mention that in only one of those decades did the core group win the final game of the NHL season. "There will be pressure," Briere said. "I have to expect that."

"You look at Steve Yzerman in Detroit," said Stevens, Briere's newest coach. "For years, they lamented that, 'Man, he never won a Cup.' Then he finally did and now that he's retired, it's, 'Man, what a great leader. What a player when the game is on the line.'

"It's always going to be a question until you win. But he has the experience that's going to help some of our people get to the next level." *

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