Flyers prospects pop in World Junior Summer Showcase openers

The World Junior Summer Showcase is upon us again, and with some of the game\'s most exciting prospects (including a handful of the Flyers\') back in action for a week of actual competitive game play, we should be in for a real treat of a break from what\'s otherwise the doldrums of summer. The tournament began yesterday and will carry us through the rest of the week (in case you missed it, you can find a quick rundown on the tournament as a whole here ), and with three prospects in action, they all managed to pop already in the early goings.

The tournament kicked off with the USA White squad facing off against the Finnish team, in a game which, despite the Finns showing the initial jump, saw the Americans coming away with a 3-2 win. For Flyers fans with no real rooting interest on a team level, though, this was still good news, as new draftee Heikki Ruohonen factored in on each of those two Finnish goals.

https://twitter.com/LightningProsp1/status/1817639125194834098

We saw Ruohonen do much of the heavy lifting on their first goal of the game, as we saw him flexing some speed on the zone entry, bringing the puck in on the rush himself, and getting the initial shot on goal. And while that shot didn\'t go in, his teammate took care of the rebound, and Ruohonen was still rewarded with an assist.

https://twitter.com/MaherMediaCo/status/1817622630343843895

We saw him involved in their second goal of the game as well -- and this time showing some strength on the cycle rather than the rush. Here, we see him engage with the American puck carrier along the boards and come away with the puck pretty easily, and then chip it out in front of the net for a dangerous scoring chance, ultimately a goal, for Saarelainen again. All in all, a really solid effort for Ruohonen, even if it did come in a loss.

And then the second game of the day was either a thriller or a brutal watch, depending on who you ask, as we saw the USA Blue team pulling off the win by a 7-2 margin. One of those two Swedish goals came from Jack Berglund, as he made use of his big frame parked in front of the net and tipped in a shot on the power play in the waning seconds of the game to keep the Swedes from losing by a 7-1 margin. Small victories, or something, right?

https://twitter.com/MaherMediaCo/status/1817687977558233202

And last but not least, Noah Powell, with some decent third line minutes to work with in this opener, didn\'t have a huge game, but still made an impact overall.

https://twitter.com/PHIPipeline/status/1817658414694117808

Powell got on the scoresheet on USA Blue\'s second goal of the game, picking up a secondary assist from that nice little cross ice pass up to the point on the low-to-high setup. And then away from the scoring, across the whole of the game, he showed some nice poise with the puck on in-zone cycle situations, and showed a bit of meanness in his game (he picked up a roughing penalty as well), to boot.

There\'s still a lot of tournament ahead of us, and this is just the first step in the evaluation process for the final World Junior rosters, but we\'re certainly off to a good start.

Talking Points