It’s a brand new season, but the same old prospect is back again. It’s still been a relatively quiet week around here, with only some teams and leagues getting rolling this early, but in these early starters, the Flyers have already seen some of their key prospects stepping up in big ways.
The News of the Week
While the Flyers did open up their training camp with an expanded roster, they quickly trimmed it back down again before they got into the real game action this week. On Saturday, they announced that they’d assigned all of Brady Berard, Alex Ciernik, Devin Kaplan, Owen McLaughlin, Ilya Pautov, Zayde Wisdom, Jackson Edward, and Andrew Perrott to the AHL so that they could get rolling with the Phantoms’ training camp this week.
On top of that, Nathan Quinn, KJ Sauer, Brek Liske, Maksim Sokolovskii, Luke Vlooswyk, Martin Psohlavec, and Marek Sklenicka were all sent back to their respective junior teams to get their seasons started.
Three Stars
Cole Knuble
It’s been a bit of a challenging go of things for the Flyers through their first two games of the preseason, but one of the undeniable bright spots of these early goings has been the play of forward Cole Knuble. He got off to a good start with his rookie game showing two weekends ago, and he hasn’t really slowed down since. Knuble stepped up in a big way as a driver of offense in the Flyers’ first game of the week in Hershey, factoring into both of the team’s goals scored (setting up the first and putting away the second himself), and while he wasn’t able to get himself on the board in Tuesday’s game, it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying, as he was able to create two of the team’s better and closer looks of the night. He’s bringing consistency in his energy game, and even if the numbers game on the NHL roster ultimately makes him still a long shot to grab a job, he’s throwing absolutely everything he has at that pursuit.
Nathan Quinn
Quinn was part of that first round of cuts from the Flyers’ training camp, but if there was any disappointment from that move that he came away with, he hasn’t shown it in his return to Quebec. Though he wasn’t able to get in for their first game of the season, he did jump right in and deliver a huge impact in their second game, putting up a goal and two assists alone in their 5-2 win over Chicoutimi (which would also become their first win of the season).
He was a player who didn’t necessarily need to return to the QMJHL for another season — with his college commitment already locked in, he could have moved on to Northeastern this year — but Quinn opted to take one more run at a title with what should be a very good Quebec team this season, so it’s nice to see him already stepping up in a big way for them.
Yegor Zavragin
It’s been two games played so far for Zavragin, and he’s posted some pretty solid results so far. He went 17/18 in his first start of the season, and picked up his first win along the way, but then followed that up with a more middling three goals on 22 shots performance in his next outing. It all averages out to a respectable enough .900 save percentage and 2.05 Goals Against Average, but all the same, that last performance back on the 16th was a less than optimal one for Zavragin, and we haven’t seen him given a game since then. So far this season, Metallurg Magnitogorsk is very much just using him as a backup and while that might be better than the three goalie rotation that he was a part of for part of last season, it’s still not exactly the level of usage that we might have hoped to see from him. We’ll see how things progress as the season goes on, though, and hopefully he can level out his game a bit more and earn himself a more even distribution of starts.
Honorable Mentions
Elsewhere in the world of NHL preseason action, the Flyers have gotten some nice contributions from a few other prospects in different positions in their lineup. Jacob Gaucher scored the Flyers’ lone goal of the game in their tough loss to the Bruins on Tuesday night, meanwhile his fellow Phantoms teammates in Oliver Bonk and Hunter McDonald came away with an assist apiece in Monday’s game in Hershey. On top of that, Jett Luchanko registered two assists across his pair of games played and, at the risk of sounding unnecessarily snarky, we should also acknowledge that he recorded two shots across those games as well, as he’s working well to find a balance between sticking to his most natural playmaking instincts and pushing the needle to generate a bit more in the way of individual chances. He hasn’t been able to bury one yet, but it feels like only a matter of time before he does, if he’s able to keep up this good work.
Across the pond, it’s been a good start to the season for the Flyers’ pair of prospects getting rolling in the SHL. Jack Berglund picked up his first goal of the season right off the bat in Farjestad’s season opener against Orebro (a 7-0 walloping, we should note) but he was held off the board in his second game, a loss to Frolunda. That matchup was a little kinder to Max Westergard, though, who picked up an assist in that win, his first point of the season with Frolunda after being held off the board in his first game of the season.
And finally, over in the Finnish leagues, it’s been a high-event start to the season for newly drafted defenseman Max Laatikainen. He opened up the season playing up at the top level with Sport in Liiga, but after seeing quite limited usage in that game (under three minutes in total), it seems the decision was made that he’d be better served playing, at least for the time being, down a level with their U20 squad. That decision seems to have paid off already, as he was able to get his game going to a greater degree pretty immediately playing in an expanded role (just under 23 minutes in his debut, and then about 15 minutes in their next time out), registering a goal and an assist over those two games. We’ll likely see him get another look with the big club at some point this season, but it will be most valuable for him to pick up some steam at the U20 level before his next promotion.
