Philadelphia Flyers goalie Antero Niittymaki, left, and teammate Daniel Briere celebrate a recent Flyers victory. (Tom Mihalek/Associated Press)

The Philadelphia Flyers are finding out they can handle adversity, something no amount of team-building exercises can accomplish.

After a 10-game winless streak threatened to push them out of the Eastern Conference playoff picture in early March, the Flyers have rebounded with a 9-3-3 string. The club won four consecutive games heading into a March 28 battle against New Jersey, good for sole possession of seventh place.

"We've been in a playoff mode for probably the past three weeks and I like how our team has been responding since we faced adversity and a lot of trouble lately," forward Daniel Briere told CBCSports.ca. "We stepped up to the plate and a lot of guys have taken it to the next level."

While Mike Richards has emerged as the heart-and-soul leader of the club, Briere has been the face of the franchise's turnaround after a disastrous 22-win season last year.

The Gatineau, Que., native signed an eight-year, $52 million US deal with Philadelphia in the off-season, bringing the promise of more offensive flair, after spending nearly four productive seasons with the Buffalo Sabres.

Briere's performance made him an easy target for critics during Philadelphia's losing streak. He was in the middle of a span of 20 games with just three goals, to go along with a plus/minus rating that was south of minus-20 for much of the season.

"The expectations didn't bother me," Briere said. "It was the same thing in Buffalo after I got the big reward in arbitration [in 2006]; there was a lot complaints about that."

Rediscovered game

Briere's and the team's resurgence have gone hand in hand. The centreman has eight goals and six assists in his last 12 games was named one of the NHL's three stars for the week ending March 24.

Overall, Briere will fall well short of a career-high 95 points last season with Buffalo, but is just two goals shy of 32, the highest he's ever achieved in the league.

He was pegged to play with former 40-goal man and fellow Quebecer Simon Gagne at the beginning of the season, but the latter's concussion issues left him to be shuttled around with various linemates.

Briere has finally found his best foil of the season in Vinny Prospal, who arrived from Tampa Bay before the Feb. 26 trade deadline.

"You never know who it's going to click with or not," said Briere. "Right from the first practice, me and Vinny had that chemistry going. I felt very comfortable and I love playing with him.

"I think it's just the way players read the game and see the game, the way offensively we react to when I have the puck or he has the puck. We seem to just be seeing the same thing out there."

Philadelphia's Mike Richards, right, hits a slapshot past New York Rangers' Michal Rozsival during the the Flyers' 4-3 shootout win on March 21. (Tom Mihalek/Associated Press)

Prospal was the just the latest part of an overhaul engineered by general manager Paul Holmgren that extends back to February 2007.

Philadelphia had 11 faces in the lineup on opening night this season that weren't on the club nine months earlier. Despite the makeover, the team won six of its first seven, perhaps in part due to a team-building trip in Whistler, B.C., before the season began.

It's not known whether that group session dealt with the subject of injuries. While the Flyers haven't been the hardest hit in the league, the club was adversely affected by significant injuries to key players, including Gagne, Derian Hatcher, Joffrey Lupul and R.J. Umberger.

And learning to be competitive and learning how to win are, of course, two entirely different things. The Flyers have won just three of 13 games that went beyond 60 minutes of play this season.

While on paper, Philadelphia is in the Top 10 when it comes to holding leads after the second period, the times they failed were particularly galling. Following the all-star break, in a span of three weeks both Florida and Boston tied a game against the Flyers in the 60th minute of regulation and then went on to win in overtime.

Briere said that type of game affected the team's confidence, as players began waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Mid-season blunders

Gradually, the team fought its way back, punctuated by two wins against Atlantic Division rival New York Rangers, to earn a season split. Trailing 1-0 with just over 12 minutes left in the last meeting with New York, Briere tied the game, leading to the overtime winner from Richards.

"We learned a lot about ourselves in those two games. We played a more patient game," said Briere. "The Rangers have a team where they don't take a lot of chances. They're very patient; they wait for you to make your mistakes and that's how they capitalize.

"What I liked about our team is the way we waited them out, basically. We stayed in control the whole time, we didn't take unnecessary chances to put us in trouble, and we waited for our chances and, in the end, it paid off."

The Flyers aren't able to rest easy heading into the final five games of the season, especially with a pair against New Jersey, which has taken five of their six previous meetings this season.