Flyers prospect stat report: Lycksell’s luck changes, Barkey and Bonk picking up steam

November is in the books and it sure was a busy month, to say the least. Looking around the prospect pool, we saw some big steps forward taken in some places, and some notable not-so-big steps forward taken in others. As they say, there\'s lots to unpack here, so let\'s get right into it.

Prospects Playing In The NCAA

The big story on the NCAA side of the prospect group remains Cole Knuble. We saw him picking up steam during the back half of his freshman season last year, and he hasn\'t slowed down since. He\'s scoring well over a point per game pace, he\'s been consistent throughout the season so far, and he\'s doing all of this on a Notre Dame team which is, to be blunt, not very good (they\'re second from the bottom of the Big Ten standings, and have just one win on the season during in-conference play). He\'s stepping up without having a whole lot of support around him, and that makes all of this feel even more impressive.

Having an equally impressive November was Alex Bump, who\'s been producing nicely after a little bit of a slow start to the season. Now, Bump is doing this on a much stronger Western Michigan team -- they\'re at the top of the NCHC standings, for contrast -- but he\'s been playing well on an individual level, and it would be hard to argue that he\'s just being propped up by team effects. As it stands, he\'s third on the team in both goals and points scored, and he\'s both finding some nice consistency and beginning to create a bit of separation from the players trailing him.

On the flip side, it\'s been a slower start to the season than we might have expected for Devin Kaplan. He seemed to be in a good position heading into his junior year -- more physically mature, more aware of the parts of his game he needs to be working on to be effective, and staring down a larger role and more minutes to work with. But still, all of this hasn\'t really manifested as the step forward in production that we might have expected to see. Now, it\'s still relatively early in a long season, and things very well could change, but the fact that we haven\'t seen the step forward taken, as an older player on a good team, does feel notable.

Prospects Playing In The AHL

And then up in the AHL, there aren\'t too many surprises. Samu Tuomaala has continued to be on a tear on the scoring front, and he\'s finally broken out a bit and begun scoring at even strength as well -- if you recall, his first handful of goals on the season only came on the power play. And while we spent much of last month lamenting the lack of scoring for Olle Lycksell and the terrible luck that had befallen him, he\'s since gotten going and not remotely slowed down. He was hugely consistent in generating chances and goals alike for the Phantoms last season, and he\'s getting right back to that now that his luck has changed.

Alexis Gendron has found his scoring touch again, and while things have tapered off for him a bit over the last couple of weeks, it hasn\'t been a result of poor play. He\'s getting regular second line minutes and time on the power play, and creating a good volume of chances for himself as well as his linemates, but it seems it\'s just his turn with the poor puck luck. That\'s the way it goes.

This month also saw Massimo Rizzo get back into action after his appendectomy recovery. He\'s yet to get himself on the board, but he\'s getting good chances, and increased minutes playing at the top of the Phantoms lineup, so the points don\'t feel far away.

The Phantoms are still getting a good bit of offense from their back end as well. Ethan Samson has stepped up nicely in the absence of Emil Andrae and Helge Grans and has worked to find a nice bit of consistency on both the defensive and offensive sides. Hunter McDonald has also stepped up and found some scoring touch, but his effects in this area have been much more streaky -- which is to be expected, given the differences in these two players\' games -- but it\'s still been nice to see him get involved when he can.

Prospects Playing In North American Juniors

There are good things happening all over the North American junior ranks, but it\'s been a veritable explosion of production at the top of this prospect group.

Things started a little slow up in London -- relative to what we might have expected, given him dominant they were last season -- but both Denver Barkey and Oliver Bonk have turned things on nicely over the last month. Barkey has climbing the ranking nicely and gotten back into the second position in team scoring, and while the chances of him climbing all the way to the top, where he finished last season, are looking a little slim -- Sam Dickinson has 45 points over his first 24 games and is just on another level right now -- Barkey is still tapping back into the consistency that was a hallmark for him last season, and producing really nicely, in turn. Oliver Bonk, too, has been gaining ground nicely. He\'s finding his offense with more consistency -- he\'s up to fifth in team scoring and second among defensemen -- with a little help to some reps back in the bumper spot on the power play, but it\'s been largely a result of a step forward taken in overall play.

And then over on Guelph, Jett Luchanko is continuing to get it done, to find ways to produce on a Storm team which has been struggling pretty mightily this season. Despite having only played 13 games, Luchanko is up to fourth on points on his team, scoring at a clip that will have him at the top of the ranks in no time -- as it stands, their top scorer is defenseman Cam Allen, who has 22 points over his first 24 games. Luchanko has the unique ability to manufacture chances seemingly out of nowhere, and that\'s serving him well in a setting where he isn\'t getting heaps of support.

This whole group has been picking up a nice bit of momentum over these last few weeks, and it couldn\'t be coming at a better time -- with selection camp for the World Junior Championship team just around the corner, these three heading in with some juice is just what the evaluators would like to see.

Prospects Playing in Europe

It\'s been something of a quiet month for the European prospect group -- not a whole ton of games played and not a whole ton of progress made on the scoresheet. So it goes.

Things have really cooled off for Ilya Pautov, of late. He\'s been a bit streaky across the whole of the season, but this month as a whole has been a bit of a step back for him. His overall average for the season still looks pretty good, but it\'s been a bit insulated by his huge numbers through September and October. The hope, of course, is that this cold stretch will be, at the very least, followed up with a hot streak, but also, letting things equalize and building some consistency wouldn\'t be the worst thing. All in all, though, we\'re reminded that Pautov is still a very young prospect and very early in his development, and the ups and downs are to be expected.

Speaking of cooler stretches, Alex Ciernik seems to be working through some of the same consistency issues over in the Allsvenskan. He had a very solid start to the season, but he\'s only managed to add three points over the month of November, which, while not outright concerning yet, if the trend continues, will get there. We can accept a bit of weirdness from him as well, coming off of a season that was largely lost to injury, but his is a situation worth keeping an eye on.

The Goalie Grab Bag

It was a hot start to the season for Yegor Zavragin, and if there was any concern that his level of play would drop off over a longer sample of games, he\'s been pretty pointedly putting them to rest. He\'s just about cracked the 20 games played mark for St. Petersburg already, and his results have only been improving. He still hasn\'t quite reached the insane threshold he set in his run with Sochi -- and we haven\'t really been expecting him to -- but he\'s inching closer to it. He\'s been improving both his overall save percentage as well as his goals against average, and he\'s stringing together some really positive overall results. It would be nice to see him continue to trend up, but even if he maintains this level of play, that\'s something we\'d be very happy with.

Back in North America, Carson Bjarnason is settling in really nicely in his final season in the WHL. The first month was a bit volatile in terms of results, but November saw things beginning to equalize for him a bit more. We\'ve still seen some big swings in goals allowed from game to game -- as well as shots faced, such is the nature of the league -- but those are coming fewer and farther in between. One did come last weekend -- he allowed seven goals against Medicine Hat -- and that tanked his save percentage a bit, which was a league-leading .920 coming into the weekend. Poor games happen, we\'re not too worked up about that, and we\'ll take the emerging good news that Bjarnason remains one of the top goaltenders in his league, and we\'ll see how he fares as the season continues to progress.

And finally, the grab bag wraps up with a bit of a mixed bag, as far as news is concerned. Kolosov\'s recall to the Flyers opened up more games available for Eetu Makiniemi, and after a decent first game in the month of October, he put together quite a solid run over his next four starts, and proved to be a dependable option for the Phantoms. This is the good news. The bad news is that any momentum he was building has been halted, as he took an injury in a game last month, and will be out for the next three months, at least, after undergoing surgery to address a sports hernia situation. And the organizational goaltending depth takes another hit.

Talking Points