Flyers select Oliver Bonk with 22nd overall pick

We’re back again, gang! After the Flyers selected Matvei Michkov with their seventh overall pick earlier tonight, they (ostensibly) closed out their first round by selecting Oliver Bonk with the 22nd overall pick.

Bonk, a 6’2 right handed defenseman, is coming off of quite a productive draft season in London of the OHL. Second in scoring among defensemen on his team (behind just the older Logan Mailloux), Bonk finished the season with 10 goals and 40 points in 67 games played, and one feels that there’s still some untapped potential there on the offensive side. On the defensive side, Bonk brings a well balanced game, all told. He’s responsible in his own end – enough to be trusted with big minutes on a good Knights team – though not flashy. He skates well, with good overall speed and edgework to be ellusive in smaller areas. He brings a bit of physicality. He’s clean and efficient in his passing, and this adds an extra element of threat in transition, to boot.

There isn’t much that’s flashy about his game, or one area where he’s particularly dynamic, but he does a lot well, and that makes for an intriguing package overall.

BSH 2023 Community Draft Board, No.28 Oliver Bonk

Getting excited about a new defenseman? *Bonk*

Broad Street HockeyJacob Russell

With a large group of skilled forwards still on the board, this pick comes as a little bit of a surprise, but it does make a bit more sense in the context of the Flyers’ whole situation. The Flyers are thinner at defense in their pipeline, and in a draft also thinner in this department, and without a second round pick to try to pick one up, this might well have been their best chance to add a bit more talent on the back end into the mix.