The news of the week
Right off the hop, we don’t have too much in the way of news, and what we do have is predictably of the transaction variety. To recap the most recent bits: Cal Petersen, Tanner Laczynski, and Wade Allison were all placed on waivers, all cleared waivers, and all were assigned to the AHL to join the Phantoms. The Phantoms also moved a handful of players to Reading after their final preseason game, but all of the prospects are sticking around. Their final roster can be found here.
What’s up with the Phantoms?
As we said, the Phantoms wrapped up their slate of preseason games over the weekend. The results, we regret to inform, weren’t really there for them. The first two of their three games were losses, but the third was a bit more successful — despite going down early, they were able to mount a nice comeback to win 4-3 in overtime. Goals in that one came from Adam Ginning, Alexis Gendron, and Laczynski had the overtime winner.
Before anyone reads too much into those results and gets too worried for the team’s season before it even really starts, we should make a note that the rosters for those first two games were pretty heavy on AHL bubble players and Phantoms depth players, with most of the bigger names sitting out and having only barely just arrived. Even the third game saw a number of those bigger names and likely bigger contributors sitting out as well. So as of right now, it’s hard to gauge what exactly the team is going to look like, how productive they can really be, at least until they kick off their regular season this weekend.
The prospect world tour
The AHL recap was a bit light this time around, but worry not, just about everyone else stepped up with some big performances worth highlighting in other leagues. Buckle in, folks!
Boston College and our pal Cutter Gauthier kicked off their season this weekend with a game against the reigning National Champions at Quinnipiac, and it was a good one. Gauthier centered BC’s top line and was given heavy minutes across all situations (including some penalty kill time alongside Ryan Leonard, which should be a lot of fun to watch this season). All told, Gauthier contributed eight shots on goal, and came up with the overtime winning goal, because of course he did.
Elsewhere in the NCAA, new Flyers prospect Massimo Rizzo had a strong start to his season over in Denver, where he picked up three assists and contributed three individual shots on goal in his first game played.
Up in the OHL, the Flyers pair of prospects playing in London also had themselves quite solid last weeks. In the Knights’ last three games played, Denver Barkey contributed two goals and two assists, while Oliver Bonk chipped in two assists of his own.
And, we should add, one of those assists for Bonk came on one of Barkey’s goals. Have a look, we love this kind of continuity.
And then over in the WHL, Carter Sotheran is off to a good start to his season as well. In his last two games played, while he was held pointless in the first, he came back with a good response game against Vancouver and scored a goal and two assists.
Moving now away from the North American continent and abroad, we’re checking in first with Alex Ciernik in the Allsvenskan. In his last two games played, he put up a tidy two goals and two assists, and has been delivering quite a sound underlying process of play as well.
And finally, over in the KHL, things are going very well for Flyers prospects as well. Alexei Kolosov is continuing to be leaned on heavily by his Dinamo Minsk team, and continuing to provide strong results. In their last three games played, Kolosov received the start in each, where he put up one shutout and only allowed two goals in both of the following games (stopping 45 of 47 shots in the first and 21 of 23 shots in the second). All told, this amounted to wins in each game, with one coming in the shootout.
Elsewhere, in Sochi, Matvei Michkov is continuing, well, to do Matvei Michkov things. In his last three games played, he totaled two goals and three assists, plus 10 individual shots on goal. And as a fun little bonus a nice little bit of that production came against his former SKA team. Surely that feels extra sweet for everyone (SKA, don’t read this).
