July 01, 2024
Joe Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports
OHL center Jett Luchanko with his Flyers jersey on after he was selected 13th overall by Philadelphia in the NHL Draft on Friday night in Las Vegas.
No sooner than the draft ended, the newest additions to the Flyers will be out on the ice in Voorhees this week.
The organization announced their development camp roster and schedule Monday morning, which will offer fans their first look at this year's 13th overall pick Jett Luchanko and another at notable London Knights prospects Oliver Bonk and Denver Barkey, as all on-ice sessions this week will be free and open to the public at the Flyers Training Center.
The on-ice sessions will be led by the Flyers' player development heads Riley Armstrong and Nick Schultz, along with help from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms' coaching staff and Princeton women's hockey head coach Cara Morey, who has been around the organization for the past few years now.
Sessions will begin Tuesday morning. The development camp roster consists of 39 players (22 forwards, 14 defensemen, and 3 goalies) that can be seen in full HERE.
Top prospect Matvei Michkov, who is in the process of leaving Russia to join the Flyers for this coming season, will not be at camp. There are still some logistics to sort out before bringing him over, GM Danny Brière said at the draft over the weekend.
Nevertheless, here are a few names to keep an eye on this week:
• Luchanko, obviously because of his first-round draft status, but also because of his speed, sense, and hustle that Brière and assistant GM Brent Flahr cited as some of the main reasons they zeroed in on him in the slide from 12 back to 13 in the Night 1 trade with Minnesota. There's also the fan scrutiny on the front office from the outside from having passed on top defensive prospect Zeev Buium, U.S. sharpshooter Cole Eiserman, and Finnish center Konsta Helenius – long considered the logical pick at the Flyers' spot – for what is being perceived as a reach. This will be the first chance for fans to see what the Flyers' front office does in Luchanko.
• Bonk and Barkey both after an absurd year in London that took them all the way to the OHL title and a goal shy of the CHL's Memorial Cup. Barkey scored 35 goals and 102 points in the regular season on the way to it – then put up a line of six goals and 21 assists in the playoffs – and Bonk a staggering 67 points (24 goals, 43 assists) for his position along the blue line – and 16 more (seven goals, nine assists) in the postseason. More notably for Bonk, he took an unorthodox role for a defenseman on the Knight's power play, moving down into the bumper spot in front of the net, and saw some amazing results from doing so. It'll be interesting to see if the Flyers try to find ways to play with that idea because their power play, as it stands right now, should be open to anything.
• Hunter McDonald joined the Phantoms late last season after a couple of years of college hockey over at Northeastern. The 22-year old defenseman was a sixth-round pick from the 2022 draft – under the old Chuck Fletcher regime – but his progress in the time since, along with his size at 6'4" and 205 pounds, has been a point that Flyers president of hockey ops Keith Jones in particular has raved about. So keep an eye out for what McDonald might bring this week.
The Flyers prospects will hit the rink in Voorhees beginning at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, then keep on moving throughout the day on to a Snider Hockey clinic at Penn's Class of 1923 arena in the afternoon.
They'll be off on the 4th of July, then conclude camp with a 5-on-5 scrimmage on Saturday night at 6 p.m. There will be an autograph sessions for fans beforehand from 4-5 p.m.
See the full schedule HERE.
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