Flyers coach John Tortorella never explicitly said at any point that center Jett Luchanko was going to make the team during training camp. The pom poms never came out. But his body language seemed to indicate he wasn’t averse to seeing the youngster end up making the club. There was never a shoulder shrug to a question like when asked about some players. Nor was there ever a negative attributed to Luchanko’s play and, perhaps more importantly for the coach, his poise at such an impressionable age.
Tortorella, who described the camp as a “pretty productive couple of weeks” was somewhat coy during a Friday morning press conference about where Luchanko might end up. But he certainly didn’t diminish the fact he liked him. When asked about what details Luchanko needed to improve on, Tortorella was direct but also keen to state his strengths.
“It’s no small detail,” the coach said Friday. “I just think, in a general term, I think he has a maturity about him. We know he’s 18, he just turned it, but he carries himself in a different way. A bright player, a good 200-foot player who understands that already as you can see. I mean no final decisions have been made, we keep on having discussions on it. I think he deserves where he’s at, especially at the position at center. The speed he brings you through the middle of the ice is pretty intriguing. He has a lot to work on as any 18-year-old kid will have. Where it all falls I don’t know, but I think he deserves to be with us right now.”
When asked about the power play and the need for it to improve this season, Tortorella said the team will be working on the power play units next week as well as focusing on 3-on-3 play for extra time, 4-on-4 play and obviously 5-on-5. The coach said Matvei Michkov will figure heavily in those aspects but also mentioned Luchanko. “Still a little worried as we talk about Luch, how much we give him, what happens when the real stuff happens,” Tortorella said. “We got to find all this out as we start our season.”
When asked by PHLY’s Charlie O’Connor about whether or not the Flyers’ rather dearth of centers might play a role in whether Luchanko stayed or went, Tortorella didn’t sugarcoat that the team needs help in the middle. “The position certainly comes into play, yeah, the center ice position,” he said. “And Luch is a center. But we’re not going to force feed a young player because he plays a position that I think we need help at, that we need to develop.
“The biggest thing in why he is still in discussions with us as far as playing in the National Hockey League is he’s a mature kid. It doesn’t worry me, ‘Is it too much for him?’ As far as just stepping into the league. Let’s say he does start playing with us, there are going to be decisions made and conversations had about is it too much right now? Or whatever it might be. But as far as being afraid because he just turned 18, I’m not afraid of that. He has just a good maturity about him. And the position certainly comes into play. Speed up the middle is so important in our league and he has it. How he sees the game and how he sees the play away from the puck has given him the opportunity to still be playing with the National Hockey League team and practice.”
Luchanko, drafted thirteenth overall by the Flyers in the 2024 NHL Draft, would have a nine-game tryout with the Flyers before they would have to make a major decision: keep him with them and burn a year of his entry-level contract or return him back to the Guelph Storm of the Ontario Hockey League. Assuming he plays the first nine games of the Flyers’ schedule (through to the Montreal game on Oct. 27) and is then sent down, Luchanko would have a few days to adjust back to his junior team as Guelph’s next game wouldn’t be until Friday, Nov. 1 against the Ottawa 67s. The same can almost be said if Luchanko were to play the four-game West Coast trek, play the home opener against the Canucks and then be assigned to Guelph after five NHL games. The Flyers’ home opener is on Oct. 19. Although it’s unlikely Luchanko would step right into the Storm lineup for a game Oct. 20 against the Kitchener Rangers, Guelph isn’t slated to play again until Oct. 25 at home against Flint.
What his addition to the club does is give he Flyers ideally a boost up the middle, adding another weapon to the bottom six while possibly being another asset on both sides of special teams. It should also take a bit of pressure off Sean Couturier and Morgan Frost knowing there’s another center who can fly and may end up being surprisingly productive as a third line center in his rookie year. But first up is the nine games (or perhaps fewer) to see how well Luchanko measures up to NHL competition. Or how far he still needs to go.
Perhaps the biggest underlying aspect to the decision to keep Luchanko up is that if he simply isn’t ready, looks lost and can’t quite cut it at the NHL level, his maturity would leave him being more determined than disappointed suiting up for Guelph. Sure he’d be upset at not staying in the NHL, but it should, if he’s mature, result in him honing his game and tearing things up in junior. That way when he’s at the Flyers training camp next September it’s damn near impossible for him to not make the squad.
