The pieces are continuing to fall into place for the Phantoms.
With the end of the NHL season coming this week, we’re seeing the slow trickle of AHL playoff eligible players loaned back to their teams also being completed. For the Phantoms, last week had Olle Lycksell and Rodrigo Abols returned to them from the Flyers — and also Alex Bump and Carson Bjarnason joining them — and that mix was expanded further still this afternoon, as the Flyers announced that, with the conclusion of their season in Buffalo last night, they’ve loaned defenseman Emil Andrae back to the Phantoms for their postseason.
Andrae, recalled after the NHL trade deadline, has just finished up an 18 game stint with the Flyers, which saw him settling in on their third pair, and chipping in an assist along the way. He’ll return to the Phantoms and see himself in a much different role — playing big minutes across all situations, and being given an opportunity to see his offensive game come alive again, and chip into what’s already emerging as a pretty productive defense group. He’s been a key piece of the team’s success while he’s been down with them, and the hope is that his transition back into action with the Phantoms will be (at least relatively) seamless.
Also notably, the only remaining AHL playoff eligible player not returned to them from recall to the Flyers is Aleksei Kolosov (do with that what you will).
The Phantoms will wrap up their regular season action this weekend, with a game against Cleveland at home tonight, and then their finale coming tomorrow in Hershey. On the other side of that, they’ll find out who their qualifying round opponent will be — either Providence or Wilkes-Barre/Scranton — ahead of the beginning of that round next week. The team is looking loaded up again, and it will be exciting to see how this newly bolstered roster will fare in the postseason.
