The NHL trade deadline has come and gone, but the Flyers aren’t done yet making tweaks to the look of their roster.
As of this morning, Alex Bump is on the Flyers’ roster, and an official announcement is expected before too long that they’ve recalled the winger from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. He’s expected to make his NHL debut in short order.
Bump, 22, was drafted by the Flyers in the fifth round of the 2022 draft, and after taking a steady developmental route — by way of the USHL, and then ultimately the NCAA on the way to a National Championship with Western Michigan — he made his professional debut with the Phantoms at the end of the season last year, getting in a good bit of experience in the postseason, before getting rolling for a long regular season in the fall.
It’s been a bit of an up and down year for him here, as an upper-body injury had him sidelined for nearly two months in the middle of this season, but he’s been finding his footing nicely across the 36 games he’s played, to date. He’s taking in some important lessons as he’s made this big jump up in level of competition, and he’s really beginning to find his game. The production, while at times a bit uneven, is definitely coming along for him, as he’s put up 11 goals and 26 points — which ranks him fourth and sixth on the team, respectively, and is certainly an impressive feat given the amount of time he missed — and he’s stepped up as one of their major weapons on what’s often been a dangerous looking top line.
Of course, it’s worthwhile to offer a bit more broad context to Bump’s situation, and make an acknowledgment that for all of the pieces in his game that have been working so far this season, he’s still far from a finished of product. It’s taken a lot of work to get adjusted to playing at this level, and while Bump’s getting more comfortable holding up physically at this level, and learning to get more out of his shifts by skating through coverage rather than around it, but there’s still some refocusing being done on how he’s generating his offense, as they’re trying to steer him away from leaning on low-percentage plays just for the sake of creating something, and being a little more patient to make a play that has a better chance of turning into something productive for them.
We highlighted a bit of an ugly breakdown from last weekend against Hartford as something of an emblematic play of the work that still has to be done to polish out his game — he went for broke on a shot from a bad angle, looking to create just one more chance in the waning seconds of the period, but instead it turned into a change in possession when the shot went wide, and Hartford was able to collect that rebound and was ready to turn that into a rush going the other way, and put away the game-tying goal and take advantage of a risk at the other end of the ice that didn’t need to be taken in that moment.
Now, this isn’t to say that all of his mistakes are blowing up so spectacularly on him, but this is just a reminder of the balance that the coaching staff is trying to strike with him, between staying true to the offensive instincts that make his game so effective and having the situational awareness to know when to avoid playing such a singularly focused game and risking giving chances the other way away for free.
And saying all of this isn’t to be overly critical or down on the player — there’s a lot to like about his game and a lot of reason for optimism that he’ll soon get to a level in his game where he’s ready to not just hang, but excel at the NHL level — but it’s just helpful to manage expectations on a still-developing player whose hype train has gotten a little out of control at times.
All the same, Bump has been chipping away at it nicely, and he’s been a good solider for them since his arrival — we recall, too, that it was his decision to delay this NHL debut, and instead of rushing to sign his ELC last spring after the National Championship and have it kick in early to get in for a couple of games at the end of the NHL season, he instead chose to go down to the Phantoms to get his feet wet with that team, and to help them on their playoff push — and that’s worth rewarding. A recall to the big club, whether it’s for just a few games or the rest of the season, doesn’t mean that the work is over, but it is a chance to get that first real taste of NHL action, and for both he and the organization more broadly to get a gauge of just where he’s at in his game. If this stint helps to illuminate some more elements that he needs to continue to work on, so be it, that’s productive as well, in its own way.
There’s no doubt that Bump is positioned to be a key part of the Flyers’ forward core as they move into the next stage in their rebuild, and while these games down the stretch won’t be as meaningful as they might have hoped they’d be when the season began, Bump getting that first chance to get comfortable and show what he can do makes things exciting. The next wave of exciting prospects is on its way, indeed.
