The Philadelphia Flyers are adding some young talent to the blue line for some depth during what is hopefully a sizeable playoff run.
The AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms ended their regular season over the weekend and in extremely unfortunate circumstances, they missed the playoffs by a total of five points after they dropped their season finale and the Hershey Bears, who sit just one spot above them in the division standings, earned an overtime win against the Rochester Americans. It was a hard-fought end to the season but the Flyers swiping a whole lot of their talent away after Denver Barkey and Alex Bump were called up to the NHL, certainly didn’t help.
With nothing going on down in the minors, on Monday before Game 2 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Flyers have brought up defensemen Oliver Bonk and David Jiricek as black aces for this playoff run. These two young prospects are going to be along for the ride.
Flyers call up prospects Oliver Bonk and David Jiricek from AHL
This isn’t the first rodeo for either of these players. Both Bonk and Jiricek got the call up from Lehigh Valley after the Flyers clinched the playoffs with a win in their penultimate game, and were able to play significant roles in what ended up being a fun finale against the Montreal Canadiens.
In his NHL debut, Bonk scored a goal and earned an assist for a production-heavy first game but also didn’t appear to be too out of place. Especially considering he is a 20-year-old defenseman who had to delay the start of his season thanks to a bad injury that kept him out until December. There were typical rookie hesitations and the underlyings did not look great — Bonk sort of got killed in terms of expected goals with just a 36.3 percent expected goals share at 5-on-5 — but the points on the board covered up for that not-so-fun conversation.
For Jiricek, he’s had plenty of time in the NHL but made his Flyers debut in that season finale, after being acquired at the trade deadline for Bobby Brink earlier this season. He didn’t put up any points or score any first goal wearing the orange and black, but in a pairing with Nick Seeler for most of the game, they controlled the play when they were on the ice. The Flyers had 58.6 percent of the expected goals share at 5-on-5 and outshot the Canadiens 9-5 with those two on the ice.
Now, since the blue line is fairly locked in at this point it is tough to imagine either of these two players getting in the game right now — especially Bonk with having just one single NHL game under his belt — but there is a world where head coach Rick Tocchet needs someone to actually help the power play up top and could use more offensive punch and size on the bottom pairing. Maybe it isn’t a coincidence that Tocchet had Jiricek play his first game with Nick Seeler, and that is a pairing that we can see if the right circumstances come up.
Of course, that is not the circumstances we want since that most likely means that the Flyers have lost a couple games in the series and Tocchet is throwing somewhat of a Hail Mary to put in Jiricek, a defender who is prone to defensive lapses and does not move all that well but has a very good offensive game.
Most likely, Bonk and Jiricek will just be along for the ride and instead of starting their offseason training early or just hanging around watching the playoffs, they get to see what NHL playoff practices are like and potentially get a leg up on next season.
Unless there is an injury, there might not be a similar call up at forward, since Alex Bump, Garrett Wilson, and Carl Grundstrom are healthy scratches, and while Nikita Grebenkin is out injured, there hasn’t been a specific timeline on his return. So, maybe the young Russian winger can find his way back and be another option for a substitution, but there are still plenty without him.
The puck drops for Game 2 between the Flyers and the Penguins Monday at 7:00 p.m.
