The Flyers’ 2026 Development Camp is officially in the books, and with it, another week full to the brim of teaching and moments for reflection for this organization’s group of prospects has come to pass.
For Shane Vansaghi — selected by the Flyers in the second round of last year’s draft, and having just wrapped up his second season of collegiate hockey — the last year has been a bit of a whirlwind, but as he’s cycled through the ups and downs that have come with a long sophomore season, he’s learning the big lessons that come with this stage of development, of what it means and needs to build his own game while still staying true to what his program demands of him.
“[To] play hard winning hockey,” Vansaghi laid out as the ethos of Michigan State hockey last week, “and I think they ask everybody to do that at Michigan State no matter who you are. I don’t think it matters who you are, where you came from, where you’re drafted. I think there’s a standard there at Michigan State and everyone is held to that.”
It’s a model that’s certainly delivered results — their collective success on the way to a run into the NCAA Tournament was quite good, and that’s to say nothing of, notably, the work the program put in to get Porter Martone to the point where he could step in and find immediate success in the NHL game — but it’s also one that Vansaghi has had varying degrees of success working with. He’s certainly shown quite positive flashes, stretches where he really is able to exemplify that wrecking ball style that he brings when he’s at his best, but consistency was a big issue for him this season. Just as often as he would pop, he would fade into the background as well, and we saw this reflected in the counting stats, in turn — Vansaghi sank back to just four goals and 11 points on the season, after registering six goals and 16 points in his freshman season.
And certainly, it’s a wide range of elements that he’s been working to shore up in his game, but as he enters a critical junior year, that offense is one of the more major pieces that he’ll be working to get back on track.
“Yeah, you’re always trying to improve like different areas of your game,” he explained, “and I think for me, like the, probably one of those areas of improvement needs to be the offensive part. And I’ve been working on that and, it’s kind of a, it’s a work in progress and it it takes time and, it’s definitely something that I need to get better at.”
With this, as well, it won’t just be one thing that will drive greater success in his offensive game, but all the same, with the size that he brings and the strength he has to park himself in one area and not be moved, an ability to improve his positioning and feast on more tips in front of the net could go a long way towards unlocking more scoring for him.
“I do [enjoy deflecting pucks in front],” he said. “It’s, I don’t know. I feel comfortable around the net, just being able to use like my strength and size in front of the net and stuff. So, anything like below the dots in the offensive zone, I feel comfortable down there. So, the more I’m there, the better I am with like puck touches and puck skills down low, I think that helps my game overall.”
And Vansaghi has been, if nothing else, a quick study in this area. There was a particular emphasis placed on these types of plays in the drill settings earlier in the week — a good stretch of work put in with the coaches setting up the prospects from the points to practice their deflections from both the low and higher slot — and Vansaghi took that practice with him right into the game settings to close out camp, showing some nice flashes of engagement at the netfront, working on his body positioning and looking for those types of deflection opportunities.
It was an encouraging sight in exactly the spirit of this camp in the first place. There’s plenty of space for evaluating and benchmark setting, but the biggest purpose of this camp is for the prospects to get some critical learning time in with the NHL staff, to absorb all that they can before they go back on their way and, before too long, begin their next regular seasons. Vansaghi is getting a nice head start on integrating these critical elements into his game, and it will be interesting to follow this course, to see how he’s able to keep the ball rolling when he returns to Michigan State and the stakes rise again.
