What the Flyers are really getting in Boris Katchouk

The Flyers made their first trade of deadline week last night, and while it wasn\'t exactly an absolute blockbuster, it was an interesting one, no less. They made a move on Sunday to swap organizational depth pieces with the Minnesota Wild, flipping defenseman Roman Schmidt for winger Boris Katchouk. This isn\'t a trade that will make big waves for the big club, but it could be a nice boost for the farm team in their push into the playoffs, while also giving the Flyers another more recall-ready piece in the pipeline, if needed.

The Roman Schmidt experiment is short-lived

As we recall, Schmidt was brought into the mix back in December in a trade which flipped him from Tampa Bay\'s system for fellow defenseman Ethan Samson, and at the time, this was a trade which made some sense -- Samson had been a reasonably consistent contributor for the Phantoms and seemed a good stylistic fit for their new system, but his long-term future with the organization was seeming questionable at best, so a change of scenery offered to him, and offered proactively, might have been a good route to go. In exchange, the Flyers were able to add a bit more size and physicality into the mix on that Phantoms blue line.

But for all of the physicality that Schmidt presented with the potential to offer, this all just really didn\'t pan out the way most would have expected. Schmidt certainly quickly established himself as a physical presence -- he was quick to make a booming hit and did also show a willingness to drop the gloves -- the rest of the on-ice impacts weren\'t so eye-catching. Schmidt\'s lack of foot speed became an issue, he seemed to struggle to adjust to the expectations within the Phantoms\' system, and indeed, sometimes that physicality was a detriment, as there were a few times when the team got exposed because he removed himself from more active play to engage with an opponent along the boards. All told, in his nearly three months with the team, Schmidt played 16 games in total, but increasingly was finding himself on the odd man out of the lineup, of late.

But just as the Flyers were proactive in making the trade which brought Schmidt in when they felt something wasn\'t working, they were reasonably quick to pull the chute on this experiment. It didn\'t work out for them in the way that they hoped, so they\'re moving on to another way to potentially help the team.

What Katchouk offers

As far as Katchouk though, we obviously won\'t know for certain until he has a few games under his belt, but at least from a theoretical standpoint, it\'s easy to imagine him being a player who can give the Phantoms a further bit of a boost up front.

Katchouk\'s game is a quite well-rounded one -- there\'s not one major element that jumps off the page, as it were, but he brings a useful utility-type game. There\'s some versatility in his positioning, in that he can play on either side wing. He brings good size and speed, and while he isn\'t overly physical, he has the frame and willingness to play through opponents (something that the Phantoms\' coaching staff has been working to draw out of their own players, of late), and the puck skills to make him an effective distributor in-zone. He also brings a nice bit of scoring touch, which the Phantoms got well-acquainted with in last year\'s play-in round of the playoffs.

A little bar ⬇️ from Boris Katchouk. @WBSPenguins | #LVvsWBS pic.twitter.com/NKdAeTlZgq

— American Hockey League (@TheAHL) October 18, 2024

And there\'s something to be said, too, for the experience that Katchouk brings to this team. It\'s not as though he\'s an old player, just 27, but he\'s played parts of four seasons (179 games) in the NHL, and parts of seven (269 games) in the AHL. That\'s a lot of experience in the back pocket, and that can be valuable. Just last night head coach John Snowden praised the effort that fellow veteran forward Anthony Richard delivered for them over the weekend, and spoke on just how valuable of an example it set for the younger players in their lineup.

\"I thought his feet were moving,\" he said. \"I thought he was driving the play up and down the rink. I thought his effort on his back checks, or second effort in battles, he was winning those. He was skating through guys on the rush. So all those little things, and that\'s what we need from those guys that have been around the league for a long time, and they understand the dynamics of the league and how you need to be successful in the league, and it will bleed into everybody. It bleeds into the young guys. It shows, okay, this guy has been doing this for a long time, and he is doing it the hard way every single time. It\'s contagious, and you saw that tonight. Everything was contagious because everybody wanted to play the right way.\"

The Phantoms have been getting good examples set by veteran players up and down their lineup lately, and it\'s been a key factor in their results starting to shift over this week. They still have a ways to go to get to where they want and need to be, but a further reinforcement from a player like Katchouk who knows the league and knows how to play the right way in this league should be a real asset to them.

Where he fits in

While it\'s clear to see the Katchouk\'s skillset offers some interesting potential to the Phantoms lineup, what\'s less certain is just where he fits in. Despite some key absences -- Denver Barkey and Carl Grundstrom remaining up with the Flyers -- the Phantoms still have a pretty full cupboard of forwards in their mix. As it stands, the Phantoms have 13 healthy forwards in their mix, and that could go up to 14 quickly if it turns out that Devin Kaplan\'s -- who was a late scratch from yesterday afternoon\'s game with an injury -- isn\'t too serious. It\'s not an impossible surplus of pieces that they\'re dealing with, but the situation does

But let\'s break that down. The lines for the Phantoms\' last game against Hartford are as follows:

Phantoms Projected: 21 Bump 25 Pederson 22 Robertson 90 Richard 23 Dorwart 26 Tomasino 72 Gendron 56 Gauchyer 20 Marody 17 Wilson 74 Wisdom 43 Eklind

19 McDonald 59 Bonk 15 Kyrou 82 Guenette 55 Sevigny 3 Grans

35 Aleksei Kolosov (Backup: 64 Carson Bjarnason)

— Bob Rotruck (@BobRotruck) March 1, 2026

That top line has been clicking well for a few games, and it seems like the Phantoms have found a stylistic match with Robertson up on that line as close as can be to what they had going when Barkey was the third player on that line, and it\'s hard to imagine that getting broken up anytime soon. The second line has been shuffled a bit of late, with the right wings rotating, but the most recent configuration with Tomasino sliding in alongside Richard and Dorwart looked little short of excellent yesterday, and that\'s a trio that certainly deserves a longer look together. And, of course, the fourth line will more than likely be staying as it is because of both how well they\'ve been playing as a unit, but also for the fact that there aren\'t many other good stylistic fits for that line elsewhere in the lineup.

So that leaves the third line, which is already in a bit of a state of flux on a game over game basis -- Marody is already in something of a platoon on that line, and Gendron seems to be heading that way as well, as he was set to be the scratch yesterday, before it was determined that Kaplan couldn\'t go. Potentially taking more games away from these already rotating players doesn\'t seem ideal (particularly with one of them being a developing prospect), but that might just be where they\'re heading. Of course, it\'s not as though those top two lines are wholly set in stone, but at the present moment at least, it\'s hard to imagine breaking them up, so until Katchouk really gets settled in and establishes a role for himself in the lineup, the path of least resistance looks like a short-term further platooning of the third line.

As we said, this isn\'t an impossible task that they\'re staring down, trying to do right by all of these players while still pulling together mixes that work, but it will be a challenge, and one that will only intensify as we get further down the stretch and the race for playoff positioning heats up. All in all, though, having too many good players deserving of playing in the top-9 is a good problem to have, and it will be interesting to see if this added depth on their roster will help push them up and over to the next level.

Talking Points