The news keeps on rolling in, folks! The theme so far today has largely been of the Flyers making moves to shore up their depth heading into the season, and this most recently announced signing falls well in line with that. Per the folks over at PuckPedia, the Flyers have signed forward Lane Pederson to a one-year, two-way contract, which will pay him $775,000 at the NHL level and $525,000 at the AHL level.
Pederson, a center, has spent the last two seasons playing for Bakersfield, the AHL affiliate of the Oilers. During the 2023-24 season, he put up a respectable 22 goals and 52 points in 66 games played, and then managed five goals and 12 points in 18 games last year, before his season was cut short by a shoulder injury which required surgery to repair back in February (but one would imagine he’ll be good in time to start this season).
And while Pederson will surely be in the mix for an NHL job out of camp, it feels more likely that he’ll serve as a boost of the center depth down at the AHL level with the Phantoms. And this, too, is pretty sorely needed. With Jett Luchanko not being an option for them for the regular season, Elliot Desnoyers not receiving a qualifying offer yesterday, and the situation with a few of their other AHL veterans up in the air still, the Phantoms’ center depth has taken a pretty major hit, and they’re going to need bodies to fill out their lineup as well. What’s more, with the group of very young forwards already down there (a group which is only going to get younger this season, with the recent OHL graduate in Denver Barkey and NCAA graduates in Alex Bump, Devin Kaplan, and potentially Karsen Dorwart joining the mix), Pederson as a more veteran player in that league will be able to offer a bit more stability while those young players are settling in and learning the ropes. It’s all about balance, as they say, and the Flyers have done well to add a nice bit of it here.
