If you look back at the 2023-24 AHL season, you’d see that the Lehigh Valley Phantoms were, for the most part, unremarkable. They finished the season 32-31-9, just barely squeaking into the playoffs with a paltry point total of 73. Their two leading scorers were a 26-year olds Cooper Marody and Tanner Laczynski, closely followed, to be fair, by a 20-year old Samu Tuomaala. But outside of Tuomaala, and a 21-year old Emil Andrae, there really weren’t many young potential NHL prospects that were contributing to the Phantoms’ success.
AHL vets like Rhett Gardner, Garrett Wilson, and Adam Brooks were also big pieces of what made up that team’s depth, while Cal Petersen played the most games between the pipes. It was seemingly a team built to compete at the AHL level, rather than be a place to develop future NHLers, and while that’s not the worst case scenario, it’s not exactly ideal either.
And of course, while Ian Laperriere is by all accounts an inspiration and a great human being, it never felt like he really excelled at being an AHL head coach. While he does seem to be a motivating force behind the bench, in addition to being well liked by players, there is more to the position than just that alone.
Fast forward two years to now, as the Phantoms gear up for the 2025-26 season with an entirely different sort of plan. Marody and Wilson remain as veteran pieces, along with AAAA names like Lane Pederson and Anthony Richard, but outside of them, the Phantoms have revamped the rest of their core.
New young names like Alex Bump and Alexis Gendron have emerged and will have huge roles on this year’s team. The goaltending duo will instead now consist of Aleksei Kolosov and Carson Bjarnason, who are 23 and 20, respectively. And the rest of the roster has been supplemented by new names and prospects that actually have developmental runways to make the NHL someday. Names like Karsen Dorwart, Devin Kaplan, and Zayde Wisdom aren’t expected to be stud NHLers by any stretch, but crucially, they are being given an opportunity earned through their impressive stretches of play at lower levels, to try and develop into something more.
And behind the bench, John Snowden has been elevated from assistant coach to head coach. And while it’s not certain as to how his appointment will go, he is someone who has worked his way up, from being an assistant coach in the ECHL, to a head coach, to then becoming the director of hockey operations, before finally making the jump to be an AHL assistant with the Toronto Marlies in 2021-22. He spent two years behind Lappy on the bench and will now get his shot to be the boss at the AHL level.
It’s all new for the Phantoms, and it’s a lot younger, too. Prospects like Jack Berglund and Cole Knuble will be pushing for AHL spots in the future, too, along with a host of others. It seems like the culture is changing in Lehigh Valley, and it might help the Flyers bring through some more NHL-ready young talent. Successful teams are able to cycle through bottom-sixers and depth defenders that they develop in their AHL systems, allowing them to withstand injuries and shift their lineups according to need. A team like the Tampa Bay Lightning comes to mind, having graduated players like Darren Raddysh and Martin Cernak from their farm team in Syracuse, who then in turn became important pieces on playoff teams.
The Flyers need the AHL team to be a place that the non-blue chip prospects go to in order to find their game at the pro level. It seems like the Phantoms are trending in that direction.
