Flyers Development Camp wrapped up on Friday as prospects from all over the world got together in Voorhees to just work on some drills and most likely meet each other for the first time. The future of the Philadelphia Flyers all in their practice rink to soak in as much information as possible in a handful of days, to take that with them for the rest of their summer training and into next season.
One prospect that has had a lot of the limelight is the newest addition to the Flyers prospect pool. The 6-foot-8 defenseman that they drafted 27th overall just last week, Maksim Sokolovskii.
Whether it is watching just how good the giant 17-year-old can skate and move with the puck, or some of his defensive acumen being on display, he’s certainly been a highlight. And considering how maligned the selection was initially, with just a few clips from Development Camp, some fans are changing their tune ever so slightly.
And now we get to hear from the player’s side of things, too.
Flyers prospect Oliver Bonk raves about Maksim Sokolovskii
On Friday as Development Camp was wrapping up, several prospects got to speak with the media before their very crucial summers began. Defenseman Oliver Bonk, who will be competing to earn a spot with the Flyers out of training camp this fall, couldn’t stop talking about Sokolovskii.
The fellow London Knight spoke at length about him having to battle with Sokolovskii in some practice drills and just what a miserable experience it was.
“Yeah, it’s terrible. He mauled me in practice. We were doing little keep-away drills and I wasn’t ready for it. The first one, I just came up and like ‘Okay, whatever this is like a warm-up drill’. And I go; and he just mauls me. He takes the puck away and has the puck from me for like a minute 30 I’m trying to chase this guy around, arms out,” Bonk said via The Inquirer’s Jackie Spiegel.
“I got ready and the next one I kind of got back at him a little bit, protected the puck a little bit better. But yeah, he’s going to be a really good player.”
And it’s not like Bonk is any small player, either. The 21-year-old defenseman is listed at 6-foot-2 and a solid 198 pounds. But here’s this behemoth who is hounding him for the puck and he got “mauled” by someone who is not even legally an adult yet.
It’s just that the newest Flyers prospect just has this physical advantage over his peers, and even most of the NHL, that certainly felt enticing enough to draft him in the first round. Maybe we just caught a glimpse of what can do in roughly four or five years when he reaches his NHL potential and is just extremely frustrating to play against. This tormentor that causes even some sturdy, powerful forwards to lose their minds because they just keep on getting absolutely enveloped by Sokolovskii’s reach and stick — to just nullify most of their scoring chances.
And if anyone knew just how Sokolovskii would develop, it would be Bonk. As the 17-year-old works his way through the London Knights for one more season under Dale Hunter, Bonk himself went back to the Knights after being drafted and played two full seasons there and won a nice little Memorial Cup with the powerhouse squad that they had. Bonk knows the path that Sokolovskii is going to follow for at least one more season, as the 2026 first-round pick is committed to the University of Maine for the 2027-28 season.
Hopefully we see many more games of Sokolovskii mauling poor OHL forwards as they try to get past him next season in London (and maybe get a little bit of offense in there too, while he’s at it).
