The news of the week
Maybe it’s a blessing, but it’s been a pretty quiet week as far as news goes. The notable exception, of course, is the recall of Helge Grans to the Flyers to fill in for Emil Andrae, who’s officially day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
Three stars
Samu Tuomaala
It’s a very Phantoms-centric three stars lineup this week — which is good news because it also means that the team is finally finding some success after a tough start to the season — and we’re kicking things off with Samu Tuomaala.
It’s been a strong start to the season for him, and despite some injury troubles to end last season and begin this one, Tuomaala has picked up easily right where he left off as one of the team’s top contributors. He came into the week at the top of their scoring chart, and this week saw him creating a bit of separation — in his last three games played, he put up two goals and four assists, bringing him to 16 points across his first 14 games of the season, five points up on the next closest player behind him (more on him soon). Tuomaala’s still working on polishing out the other areas of his game, but he’s stepped up in a big way on the scoring front when the team really needed it, and that’s been nice to see.
Olle Lycksell
We won’t drag this out too much more — that second place player in team scoring on the Phantoms, it’s Lycksell. He’s been plugging along nicely after a bit of a slow start, and now that he’s finally broken the seal and picked up his first goal of the season, it feels like nothing can slow him down. He’s got two goals and two assists over his last three games, and we’re finally seeing him getting the results to match what’s been a really sound underlying process for him through the whole of the season, to date. He’s generating a ton of chances — he still leads the whole of the AHL in shots on goal — and putting himself in good scoring positions, which is all to say that while these results are impressive, they also feel reasonably sustainable. The Phantoms are finally finding some good scoring punch, and Lycksell has been right at the center of it.
Alexis Gendron
Also in the center of that scoring surge is Gendron, who’s having kind of a wild start to his season. Despite starting the season on the outside looking in on a regular lineup spot, when he did get himself into the mix, he’s made the most of those opportunities and hasn’t really slowed down. He’s second on the team in goals scored with five, just one behind Tuomaala and Jacob Gaucher despite having played six fewer games than them. Two of those goals came this past week — in one game, we should add — as he’s continuing to find ways to create good chances for himself and give opposing goaltenders fits.
The Phantoms are still working to develop his playmaking (he has just one assist on the season) as well as his off-puck play, but that’s all trending in the right direction. And, if nothing else, he’s got a knack for scoring goals, which makes him fun to watch while the rest of his game is still coming together.
Honorable mentions
We’ll shift from our heavy focus on the AHL to a heavy focus on the OHL, because the Flyers’ prospect group in that league is all on a nice run of impressive play — which also included a bit of playing against each other. Jett Luchanko is continuing to pile up the points, even on a struggling Guelph team, as he he picked up a whopping two goals and three assists over his last three games played. He was held without a point in the second installment of the prospect bowl though, but we did see Denver Barkey and Oliver Bonk both show up big in their game against Guelph. In that matchup, Bonk put up a goal — his second of the week — while Barkey chipped in a goal and an assist. And for Barkey, this was a big game, but part of an otherwise huge week — his production really exploded, and he totaled a goal and five assists across his last three games played.
We’ll take a quick detour abroad, while we’re at it, and check in with Ilya Pautov. He played two games this week and chipped in two goals, bringing his total on the season up to seven and his points total up to 20 across his first 23 games played. He’s still battling through a bit of streakiness — both of his goals came in one game, and then in the second of the week he was held without a point — but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. He’s still putting together a productive season, all the same.
And finally, to bring things all the way back full circle, we’ll close this out with a note on Elliot Desnoyers. He didn’t have the same week that some of this teammates did, but he still chipped in a respectable one goal and one assist on the week, and this was nice to see. He’s been bounced around in the lineup a bit — and indeed, even out of it, at times — as he’s still working to fully find his footing again at the AHL level. He’s got some more jump this year, but it’s going to be a process to rebuild things to be closer to what we saw from him in his first season. It’s a work in progress, but here’s hoping that this good week will serve as a strong foundation and set some more positive play in motion.
