The NHL is still on break due to the 2026 Winter Olympics tournament playing out through the rest of the week, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything going on. The Philadelphia Flyers returned to practice earlier this week and with the sessions happening but no actual games going on, they used the opportunity to get a closer look at some young players.
First, it was goaltender Carson Bjarnason that was recalled to be the team’s second netminder with Dan Vladar at the Olympics and Sam Ersson still too injured to participate. But on the second day, two young defenders were brought up from the AHL and one of them is 20-year-old Oliver Bonk, who is experiencing his first season of professional hockey.
Bonk will certainly be back on his way to Allentown as soon as the Olympic roster freeze ends on Feb. 22 and before the Flyers play their first game back three days later, but it’s now an opportunity for him to get the feel of what being in the NHL feels like. And it means even more for what he’s gone through to start his pro career.
As he was still a longshot to compete for a spot on the Flyers’ roster, there was an outside chance that the youngster Bonk could have made the team out of camp thanks to Rasmus Ristolainen being out. But, he himself suffered an injury and was held out for the entirety of the NHL training camp after rookie camp, and then wasn’t able to make his AHL debut until Dec. 6. Now just over two months later, he’s up with the big club.
Oliver Bonk talks being up in the NHL with the Flyers, for now
After his first practice, Bonk was asked exactly how he felt being with the Flyers during this short amount of time.
“Yeah, I mean it’s cool. This is where you want to be all the time, so it’s nice for sure,” the defenseman said.
It is perfectly understood by all parties, the player and the reporters asking the questions, that this is a temporary situation and as soon as Friday (when the Phantoms play their next game) we could have Bonk sent back down. But, it’s all about just getting as much experience as possible so that when he is ready to be in Philadelphia full-time, there’s at least some familiarity.
But obviously that can’t happen if Bonk doesn’t fully recover from his earlier injury. So, how is he doing with that?
“I feel like once I got 10 games in, really felt like I was kind of back to normal,” he said. “And, you know, dropped some weight that I was carrying from rehabbing and not skating as much. And I started feeling better on the ice with skating and stuff like that.”
Has coming back from such a lengthy absence due to an injury changed anything about his day-to-day preparation throughout this season? Well, there’s some positives to take from missing the first multiple months of your first pro season.
“Yeah, I mean, definitely got a lot more stretching and rehab to do before every skate now, which is sometimes a lot, but I mean it teachers you how to be a pro early on. And, I mean it’s something you have to deal with and you deal with it — and hopefully now I’m passed it and it doesn’t happen again.”
While we don’t want to get too into the weeds and suddenly claim that because of what Bonk has gone through, he’s actually going to reach his ceiling, there is a little truth to that. For him to go through something so early — some adversity to put in excellent habits isn’t the worst thing to happen. And now Bonk’s preparation has been improved and if something ever does happen like this again, he knows how it works.
Bonk has scored two goals and six points through his first 22 AHL games this season. But, if we want to pull some strings, the 20-year-old blueliner went through the first eight games without earning a point — and that lines up with the timeline Bonk himself laid out about when he started to feel like himself again. If we take into consideration a fully healthy Bonk, then six points in 14 games isn’t the worst from a very young defenseman playing his first pro hockey.
Now, it’s just up to Bonk to finish the AHL season strong and then get to actually be at the Flyers’ training camp in several months and try again to make this roster.
