The AHL All-Star Classic is just about a week away, and with the Phantoms’ representative in Denver Barkey remaining on the Flyers’ roster as the NHL roster freeze in advance of the Olympic break has come and gone, another one of the team’s exciting prospects has been called upon to replace him.
Christian Kyrou gets the nod
With Barkey unavailable — and likely the next most natural option in Alex Bump still out with injury — the call was made to select Phantoms defenseman Christian Kyrou to represent the team at this year’s All Star festivities.
And this default selection situation certainly shouldn’t be read as any sort of slight towards Kyrou, as he’s been putting together quite a remarkable season for himself in his own right. It’s been a little bit of a strange one, as he got off to a scorching start to his tenure with the team after arriving in the trade for Samu Tuomaala, putting up 14 points over his first 12 games with the team, but then followed that up by going without a point for the next 12 games, a stretch which covered the whole month of December and halfway through January. But to his credit, he’s been able to get things back on track in a big was since the back half of January, cleaning up the details on the defensive side of his game, getting more involved with the puck, and he’s been reaping the benefits. It’s been a respectable 10 points in the 10 games since he snapped that points drought on the road in Springfield, with six of those points coming over last weekend’s three-in-three, as he’s been picking up steam very nicely, contributing well to the Phantoms’ push to revive their offensive game.
Despite that challenging middle stretch to his season so far, Kyrou’s stepping as a key piece on his new team, while also having already surpassed his season high in production (hitting 24 points in 34 games to best the 23 points in the 57 games of his rookie season), and this is a well-deserved nod for that.
What it means for Barkey
In all of this, too, there is some interesting writing on the wall as it relates to Denver Barkey. In the Flyers’ decision to not send him down for the break to continue to get game reps, they seem to be signaling that what is more important to them and to Barkey is that he, instead of getting more games in and time working down with the development staff with the Phantoms, that he gets some rest in order to come back refreshed for the rest of the NHL season, where one can assume they expect him to stick around for the long haul.
Of course, things can change quickly, and if Barkey comes back from the break and his game suddenly takes a major turn for the worse, the Flyers would all but certainly consider sending him down for a reset, but this does still bode well for his chances of sticking around through the remainder of the season. Barkey’s been putting in some legitimately good work at both levels this season, and this is a nice nod to that.
