Flyers Farm Stars: Alex Bump keeps rolling, Zayde Wisdom steals the show

The News of the Week

You know, we had a whole blurb drafted in this section as of yesterday, while this was coming together, about how there really wasn\'t all that much going on this week. Look how quiet it\'s been! And then the Flyers recalled Adam Ginning from the Phantoms for their game against the Islanders. So that\'s one bit of news, just for us.

Three Stars

Alex Bump

If there\'s one player who\'s been rolling in a huge way in the pipeline here, it\'s Alex Bump. He\'s built on a reasonably productive early season and really took off over the last few weeks, and indeed just seems to be getting better as the season wears on. Over this past week, he came up huge for Western Michigan in their series sweep of Miami, putting up two goals and three assists over that pair of games.

He\'s on a four-game scoring streak and a six-game points streak since returning from his winter break. Opponents just can\'t seem to find a way to slow him down right now.

Zayde Wisdom

The Phantoms closed out their week, their last game before the All Star break, with a bang, putting up nine goals in their win over the Bridgeport Islanders. That game was a big one particularly for Wisdom, as he came into it with a bit of momentum (one assist on the week) and managed to build that up exponentially. That is, he had a hat trick in that game, and was a huge presence for the Phantoms in terms of driving play. He had an excellent game, and in some ways it\'s a shame that we\'ll have to wait until next Friday to see how he can build on it.

Olle Lycksell

Lycksell has been busy since he was sent back down to the Phantoms, and his work has been decidedly impressive. Before that offensive explosion on Wednesday (a game that he actually missed, as he was a little under the weather), the Phantoms were sort of limping through the weekend. They scored four goals across the weekend\'s three-in-three, and Lycksell scored three of them. It was a pretty singular effort, but maybe we shouldn\'t be surprised -- earlier in the season, we saw Lycksell putting the team on his back and dragging them to success, and he\'s been able to pick up right where he left off with them, in that regard.

Honorable Mentions

Given the week -- well, particularly last game -- that the Phantoms had, it shouldn\'t come as a surprise that we\'re not nearly done recapping their players\' production. Both Alexis Gendron and Massimo Rizzo got themselves on the board with goals against Bridgeport on Wednesday, and Rizzo had two assists to top off his week in scoring. Ethan Samson and Emil Andrae saw their playmaking working well -- encouraging to see, as the Phantoms were getting a little too reliant there on just firing shots on from the perimeter and hoping for the best -- and Samson came away from the week with a pair of assists, while Andrae had three.

The big story of the week, though, was Samu Tuomaala\'s offense starting to come back to him. He missed the Sunday game to close out the three-in-three as he was a bit under the weather, but it was a productive week for him on the whole. In the three games he did play, he put up two goals and an assist. And those two goals were pretty huge -- both came in that Bridgeport game, and they were his first since November 27, officially bringing a 21-game scoring drought to an end. Now, to be sure, there\'s still a lot of work that he has to do to get his game all the way back on track, but this is a very good first step.

We\'ll take a brief detour abroad to the MHL, where Ilya Pautov is starting to get rolling again. It was a quiet week for him in terms of game action, with just two games on the schedule, but he came away with a goal between those two. Not a massive output, sure, but respectable all the same.

And then, the rest of the week\'s notable production all came from the Canadian junior ranks. Over in the QMJHL, Spencer Gill has also started to get going again on the offensive side -- after a bit of a quiet spell, he\'s got three assists over his last two games played.

Over in London, their last two games were productive -- though not world beating -- for the Flyers\' pair of prospects. Oliver Bonk picked up a goal on the week, while Denver Barkey picked up an assist in their first game, though he missed the Sunday game with an illness. Combine their stat lines, too, and you get Jett Luchanko\'s production over his last two games (how\'s that for continuity?).

And finally, it was a pretty solid week for Carson Bjarnason out in Brandon. He got starts in both of the Wheat Kings\' games on the week, and while he came away with a loss in the first game, he still managed to stop 21 of the 24 shots he faced, and then he rebounded nicely for his second start against Red Deer -- to the tune of 29 saves on 31 shots, and a win collected for his trouble.

Talking Points