It’s been a pretty quiet summer across all corners of the Flyers and Flyers-related realm, but that doesn’t mean it’s been completely uneventful. And just as the Flyers have been chipping away at their business, doing their small moves and tinkering with the roster, so too has their farm team down in Lehigh Valley.
The Phantoms haven’t really been staring down a roster overhaul from last season to this season — with so many prospects having graduated to the AHL recently and still sticking around, in need of more seasoning, a good portion of the lineup remains pretty locked in — but the small bits of tinkering that they’ve done have been pretty illuminating, in their own ways.
Recently, the Phantoms announced that they’ve signed defensemen Xavier Bernard (a fourth-year pro) and Sam Sedley (just graduating from the QMJHL, and was an invite to the last two Flyers development camps), as well as re-signed forward Jacob Gaucher (who had a solid rookie season with the team last season, and became something of an Ian Laperriere favorite). There are also rumors of two more signings of young defensemen, but those haven’t been confirmed or announced yet. All smaller, peripheral moves, but it offers them a bit more depth support and call-up flexibility (some or all of these players will likely see themselves shuffled back and forth between Lehigh Valley and Reading, as needed).
But even more interesting is how things are unfolding for them in the crease. The Phantoms announced earlier this month that they’ve re-signed goaltender Parker Gahagen — an unsurprising bit of news considering how well he performed for them last season in what was originally a call-up situation. But then add on top of that the fact of yesterday’s release that they’ve also signed Keith Petruzzelli for the 2024-25 season, and things start to get a bit curious. Because, we remember, the Flyers also have Cal Petersen under contract for one more season, and with how — shall we say — difficult his showings in the NHL have been for him of late, it feels like a given that he’ll be slipped through waivers once again to spend that last season with the Phantoms. This brings them to three goalies knocking about in the AHL, before we even get to the Alexei Kolosov of it all.
Now, this doesn’t necessarily have to be an indication that things are indeed going downhill fast as they relate to Kolosov — who, as we might recall, has been rumored to have grown frustrated by his treatment by the Flyers organization to the point of wanting to leave North America and return to playing abroad — we’ll acknowledge that right off the bat. Gahagen and Petruzelli have both spent parts of the the last several seasons between the AHL and ECHL, and there’s nothing preventing the Phantoms from sending one or both of them to Reading until they might be needed as an injury replacement. There’s nothing locking them into a logjam. But, at the same time, this is a bit more AHL caliber depth than we might normally expect to see, and it does feel fair to wonder if amassing it is at least in part due to some uncertainty about where Kolosov is at, and a way to have some insurance in the event that he does opt not to return to Lehigh Valley for this season.
It’s a strange situation, to be sure, but with things set to start picking up again in just a few short weeks — the Rookie Series which closes out rookie camp has just been confirmed for September 13 and 14 — it’s one that we should be getting some clarity on soon.
