The Philadelphia Flyers might have just unlocked one of their top prospects and it was because of being able to tell him to tie his skates a different way.
When Jack Nesbitt was selected 12th overall by the Flyers last June — a pick that the Flyers got because they traded up 10 spots from 22nd overall and paid 31st overall for the privilege — there were a whole lot of critics. He was seen as just this large, 6-foot-5 center that doesn’t really move the needle much in some prospect pools. Heckles from all around the hockey world were saying what a big mistake the Flyers made taking the Windsor Spitfires forward so high, and all that stuff.
The main concern wasn’t his hockey sense, or his passing, or his ability to forecheck, or his shot — it was just that he looked so slow on the ice. Virtually every single prospect and draft analyst pointed out that his skating is a major reason why they graded up lower, as most had him mocked or ranked in the 20th to 32nd overall range.
But the Flyers might have just fixed that.
Highlighted in an article from The Athletic on Thursday which gave the spotlight to Flyers director of player development Riley Armstrong and how he is really a key to the team’s rebuild working out well, was a short anecdote regarding Nesbitt. Apparently, during rookie camp Armstrong specifically pulled Nesbitt aside and told him a different way to tie his laces on his skates to help him out.
And last month while speaking with the media during rookie camp, the 18-year-old center got more into it.
“Riley Armstrong, he told me a little trick to miss one of the eyelets, to tie up my laces and it’s definitely helped a lot,” Nesbitt told the media. “It helped me bend forward more with my knees — it’s made a huge difference which pretty much shocked me. … Yeah, my second one down to skip it. I had a lot more movement so I felt way better. It helped. It was weird.”
This is just wild stuff. All it might take for Nesbitt to be more mobile on the ice and fulfill his potential as a very solid NHL center, could be not putting his skate lace through one of the eyelets. Just skipping one of them. The most simple thing you could imagine but it now might change Nesbitt’s entire skating stride and make his mobility not a major problem.
Armstrong has a background in figure skating with his mom being a figure skating and power skating coach back home in Saskatoon, so maybe this is just something that he has picked up throughout his development and is passing it on to players who need it. Now all we can think about is potential scouting trips out to Windsor and Armstrong pointing out his skating stride and saying to himself, “I can fix him”.
Nesbitt has already made his way back to the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires and will spend the rest of his season there, working away, but now with this little trick, could we see a huge explosion from him offensively? He is already needing to take on more of a workload with Washington Capitals prospect Ilya Protas leaving the OHL to go play in the AHL, so is this going to take him to this next level?
Will a hypothetical 100-point season keep his detractors silent and can we all point back to Armstrong spending maybe a couple minutes showing Nesbitt how to tie his skates the right way, to unlocking his potential? When Nesbitt is lifting the Stanley Cup after winning the Conn Smythe, with the second eyelet on his skates empty, will we remember this specific moment in time and thank Riley Armstrong for what he did to bring a championship back to Philadelphia?
Only time will tell.
Last season, in his draft year, the Sarnia, Ontario native scored 25 goals and 64 points in 65 games for the Windsor Spitfires. He finished fifth in scoring on his team and was sixth in scoring among all draft-eligible skaters from the OHL.
