It’s another jam packed player review today, as we take some time to talk about four of the Flyers’ prospects who made the jump to the NHL this season, for overall pretty positive, though limited, looks with the big club. Let’s get right into it.
Emil Andrae
Andrae was, to his credit, the only player of this group to stick around all the way through training camp and earn himself a spot with the team to begin the season, and for that we give him a whole lot of credit. He had an excellent camp, and gave the management no choice but to give him a longer look.
That longer look, though, ended up not going great for him. We saw some positive flashes from him — a few nice offensive chances generated, and his puck moving ability on display — but even playing in limited, sheltered minutes across four games, it looked like he was chasing play, to some degree. The underlying results weren’t kind to him — a 37.63 CF% and 35.54 xGF% at 5-on-5 — nor were the more basic stats, as he also averaged just a 40 GF%. He had the look of a player who would figure out the NHL game eventually, but he just wasn’t there yet.
Adam Ginning
Ginning didn’t get a look with the Flyers until later in the season, and it was a bit of a mixed bag, on the whole. Ginning showed some flashes of really sound defensive play, of even looking like he could be outplaying some of the veteran depth defenseman, and might well deserve a more permanent spot in the lineup in their place. But then we also saw moments when the pace of play seemed to be too much for him, where he’d miss an assignment or look a bit lost in the defensive zone, and then be burned in a pretty ugly way for it.
Now, all of this is more or less what we’d expect from a player with even now just 10 NHL games to his name — there will be some ups and downs and he’ll have to weather the tougher periods and learn from it all — so we can’t really be too upset that this is how things played out.
Ronnie Attard
The same, broadly, can be said of Attard’s time up with the Flyers as well. He was called up around the same time as Ginning, though he got a few more games (12 to Ginning’s nine), and that should tell us something about the coaching staff’s impressions of his play as well. Attard is a bit more experienced at the NHL level, relatively speaking, as those games brought his career total up to 29 games (spread across the last three seasons). So it makes sense that, while he’s still working through some growing pains, on the whole he’s looked a bit more settled at this level.
Despite those growing pains though, we did still see flashes of what makes Attard’s game so effective — his ability to move the puck in transition, as well as the offensive instincts and the power behind his shot (though it could use some work in the accuracy department). His overall results were positive — two points and a 57.85 CF% and 54.81 xGF% at 5-on-5 — and while it’s clear that he still isn’t a finished product, he’s shown that he’s pretty ready to take on a more regular role at the NHL level.
Olle Lycksell
And hanging around for the longest was Lycksell, as he played a total of 18 games with the Flyers this season. And it was bit of an up and down stretch for Lycksell — when his minutes were really limited, he did struggle to optimize them, but the he earned a bit more trust from the coach staff, and earned some more ice time in turn, we really saw his game start to come together. He was pretty consistent in his ability to generate some good scoring chances, be it for himself or a linemate, but that first NHL goal was elusive for him (until the absolute beating the Flyers took at the hands of the Blue Jackets, when the excitement was lessened in some ways).
And overall, the underlying numbers match what the eye would tell us — a 55 CF% and 61.21 xGF% back up the impression that the Flyers were better off offensively when Lycksell was on the ice.
Three Questions
Did they live up to expectations?
This one is a bit tricky because there are a couple here — namely Attard and Lycksell — who we came away from last season feeling like they were probably the closest to being ready to stick full time at the NHL level, and then because of good but not great training camps, and the logjam of particularly older players ahead of them, didn’t see them get the longer look that we might have expected.
But even so, our expectations were, broadly, pretty measured. Coming into this season, the hope for really this whole group was just to see them get some NHL minutes and being to settle in with them. We didn’t need them to take off running with those minutes, but just be able to show that they can handle them, and by and large, they were able to. Even Andrae, who we could point to as having still the most polishing and adjustment work to do after his look at the beginning of the season, showed enough in the way of positive flashes to have us feel reasonably confident that he can develop into that readiness, and that’s something.
We kept the bar relatively low, but in their limited time spent with the team, we can say that they reached it.
What can we expect from next season?
As is almost always the case with these groups of young players, a lot is going to come down to how things go in training camp and in the preseason games. Each of these four showed some positive play in their time in the NHL this season, but as Attard in particular saw clearly in the past couple of seasons, some positive play at the end of the season does not automatically guarantee you a spot on that opening night roster. But with some veterans from this season’s roster looking to be departing — and hopefully not being replaced with other veterans — there will be spots open for the taking for next season. The hope is that at least a couple of these players can show up with some jump and put together a training camp to earn one of those spots this time around, and we’ll see how they fare in that next phase, that next step up in their development.
How do we grade their 2023-24 season?
Overall, if we average everything out, what we’re left with is some imperfect play, but still marked by positive flashes, and that left us with some optimism for what these players could do in the future, with longer looks in the NHL. Pretty good so far, with some promise, so we’ll call that…
Grade: B-
