Philadelphia Flyers 2024 Top 25 Under 25, No. 23: Elliot Desnoyers

No. 23: Elliot Desnoyers

After spending the last couple of days talking about a pair of newly drafted additions into the organization, we\'ll pivot now to one who\'s been in the fold for a few years now, and gotten a good bit of professional experience already.

Elliot Desnoyers, after a productive first season in the AHL, looked like he was ahead of the developmental curve, but after a drop off in production in the season following, one wonders if he\'s now slid to being behind on that same curve. Or does that average out to being more or less on track? There\'s a lot to unpack in this whole weird situation, so let\'s get right into it.

2023-24 Primary League/Team: Lehigh Valley (AHL) 2023-24 Statistics: 6 G, 16 A in 63 GP Age as of 9/15/2024: 22 (1/21/2002) Acquired Via: 2020 NHL Draft - Round 5, Pick 135

How did Desnoyers\' 2023-24 season go? Is his stock trending up or down from where it was entering the year?

Desnoyers headed into this past season with a ton of momentum. Expectations were relatively low for his first professional season the year before — the jump from the QMJHL to the AHL is a big one, and we expected he was going to take a good bit of time to adjust — but he came in and found a way to be an impactful player just about from the jump, and for most of the season, he was one of the Phantoms’ most consistent contributors. And pair that with the fact that, in his four-game recall with the Flyers, he held up well and even showed some real flashes, he looked like he might not be far away from legitimately pushing for a full time NHL job.

But then last year, for his sophomore season, he seemed to hit the breaks. He found himself shuffled down in the Phantoms’ lineup a bit, playing a depth role more akin to what would be expected of him in the NHL, and it just seemed like he couldn’t adjust. Often, he looked like something of a nonfactor for the team, and even found himself shuffled out of the lineup entirely at times. All told, he produced just half as many points as he did in his first year in the league, and the brakes really seemed to be thrown on in his development.

What are we expecting from Desnoyers this season? What should we be looking for from him?

The question, then, becomes whether Desnoyers can bounce back this season. The pressure – if there was any last season – to be pushing for a job with the Flyers right away should be gone, and the focus has shifted to him getting more consistent minutes with the Phantoms and building his game back up. He\'s going to need some help from his coaching staff down there for that – a bit of patience that seemed to be lost from him last season – but there remains a real degree to which he has to buckle down and get adjusted to playing in a depth role, if that\'s how they\'re committed to using him in preparation for an NHL graduation (which, for our money, feels like the right call).

Desnoyers has an established history as a very productive player at the Junior level, and while last season might have seen him producing a bit higher of a rate than expected and some amount of regression might have been expected in turn, it\'s not as though all of his potential has been sapped away entirely in just a few short months. It feels reasonable to expect that he can at least take the first step towards getting back on track this season, and we\'re hopeful that we\'re right on that one.

How does Desnoyers fit in the Flyers’ rebuild? Is it likely he’s going to be a part of the next good Flyers team?

While we don\'t want to place too much undue pressure on him at still such a young age and with still so much developmental road ahead of him, a lot as it relates to his projection and place in the organizational depth chart is going to come down to what he\'s able to do this season, if he\'s able to right the ship. Because, on the one hand, with the Flyers rebuilding and needing support from productive young players in the next few seasons, there are going to be a number of spots open for the taking, and the race for them still feels well and truly wide open, which is good news for Desnoyers as he\'s still sort of figuring it out at the professional level. But, on the other hand, the Flyers do have a ton of forward prospects in the system competing for those jobs, and if he continues to stagnate, it would be easy to get buried in the mix of all of those other players.

All of this is to say that while it feels difficult to call anyone in the mix for a mid-bottom six role in the future a lock, Desnoyers still feels like he’s firmly in the conversation.

What do we think Desnoyers’ ultimate NHL upside is, and how likely is it that he gets to something approaching that?

Despite the bump in the road that he\'s seemed to hit, Desnoyers\'s ultimate upside doesn\'t feel like it\'s changed. It still feels like, if things pan out, that he can find a role as a good energy-type bottom six player, who can still offer some scoring depth to boot. Now, does that if feel a little bit bigger now? Sure, maybe a little. And it will begin to feel even a bit bigger still if he gets off to a rocky start to this season as well. But the Flyers, lest we forget, are still in the process of rebuilding, and as such are in the privileged position of not needing Desnoyers to hit right away. They can maintain some patience in his development to get him to where he needs to be. The door certainly feels open for him, though.

Previously in Philadelphia Flyers Summer 2024 Top 25 Under 25:

Intro / Honorable Mentions

No. T-24: Spencer Gill

No. T-24: Jack Berglund

Talking Points