School is back and Exploding Goods has what you need to win your year. We've got everything from cleats to sambas, dunks, and more. Plus, the hottest looks from Nike, Jordan, and Adidas. Find your first day fits in store or online at dicks.com. [MUSIC] >> Hey, everybody, how you doing? Welcome to PHLY Fliers presented by mortgage CS checkout mortgage CS.com/PHLY to start your home buying process today company and MLS ID number one four six four seven six six. My name is bill mattes. I am trapped in a I am trapped in bunk bed jail joining me today is Philadelphia's number one hockey beat reporter Charlie O'Connor Charlie has been spending the first couple of days back from Vegas in beautiful voorhees, New Jersey at flyers development camp and we're going to get into that today. You know, because what the hell else are we doing? It's not as if the flyers are major players here in the free agent market or anything, but how you doing today, Chuck? >> I'm doing okay. It's been a busy week. I would like to point out that I now know how it feels a little bit. I know how it feels when I would come on the show from the the Wells Fargo Center during the season and immediately freeze. So I get where you're coming from with that frustration because when we went on and you were just frozen and I just had to basically stall for time, I get it. I understand now how that felt. >> All right. I think is it Charlie gone now or have I lost connection? Bill, you are good. >> I'm good. All right. You froze for a second. I wasn't sure what was going on. Yeah. So we have development camp yesterday was kind of the as Kelly joked, the like I bet you they went around the room and everyone said a fun fact about themselves and not a whole lot went on on the ice. There were no battle drills or anything. But today was it was a lot more of the it was a lot more of what you come to expect from a normal day of training camp or whatever is that fair to say Chuck? >> Yes. Yeah. Today. So the way that development camp tends to go is you have day one is very light. It's more just a warm up day in terms of all nice stuff. Days two and three are the real heavy work days. I think that's where you can gain the most actual knowledge about the players skills because they're the workouts, the drills are more intense and also they're just more competitive. They're actually against each other rather than just like skating in a line and weaving in and out of objects and whatnot. And then day four is the day when we deal with the script. So that will be Saturday. We will have a scrimmage at around, I believe 6pm at the flyer training center on Saturday at night. So check that out. But yeah, today was a definitely a day where you could actually learn something about the players much better than yesterday to be sure. All right. So I guess that's what I want to get into to start today's show is if we learned anything about some guys and why not start with the headliner, the 2024 first round pick, the guy maligned at first. And then as we kind of got over, all right, they passed on Buoyam who just seemed as if he was going to be a consensus higher pick, but he did drop to, you know, basically 13. Then they passed on Hellenius, someone we just saw in all the mocks goes well before Gent Luchenko, but they end up with Luchenko and as we see, you know, we read more about him. It's like, all right, we knew about the speed. We knew that as soon as we read his name, that's something that we joked about a few weeks ago. But as we're reading more like his testing at the combine, how he just seems, maybe he's an athletic freak in nature and the upside might be tremendous with him given his age and what he was able to do with the combine. What can you tell us you learned about jet today down at the training facility, Chuck? Yeah. I mean, I would say that number one, and I've learned this by doing these at all McCamps quite a few times, is a lot of times for the young guys, the guys, this is their first at all McCamp. The first day, especially, it's a little bit of a feeling out process. You can tell that they're not ready to just jump right into the deep end. They need to get some adjusting, and I think that was the case with Luchenko today. One thing I will say is that from the jump, you can tell he's a great skater. I mean, that is abundantly clear from the second you see him, which makes sense. That's just a natural ability, and it's the most noticeable ability that anyone who plays a sport on ice is going to show. He flies up. I mean, he's got a fantastic acceleration, and when they were doing skating drills throughout the day, like the push that he is able to get off of his lateral strides, like when he's trying to gain separation when he's getting challenged, when somebody's trying to challenge it physically, and he's trying to get around someone, like there is serious power behind those strides. More power than I saw of anyone on the ice today. It's just, it's fundamentally clear, this is a really, really good skater. Now, the rest of his game, I would say that he was, and this is something I do think he is going to have to work. And I think this is absolutely an issue I saw when I watched tape on him pre-draft, not as much as today. So I think today was a bit of jitters, but he does need to get better at protecting the puck. You know, when there were two on one, two on one, rush drills, when there were two on two drills, like the puck was getting knocked off a stick of fair amount. He was not finishing a lot of those plays because he wasn't protecting the puck well enough. He wasn't, you know, cradling the puck in a way or being deceptive enough so that the defense, or the forward, whatever was covering him didn't feel comfortable just trying to strip it from him. So that's something there. And there were a lot of reps, especially in the beginning where he wasn't even getting to the net. He wasn't even getting a shot because the puck was getting knocked away from where he really started to shine and where you started to say, okay, I see what they saw in the sky. They were doing these drills, there were two on ones and also just kind of one on ones in a way where you go to, you drive the net with the puck with power and then try to beat the goalie in close. Luchenko is really good at that. He really shows off his soft hands when he's around the net, trying to finish on chances. You know, that's how he scored most of his goals in juniors. It was very like dangle heavy, you know, in the crease area just outside the crease. I don't think he has a terrible shot, but he's not a sniper and he doesn't use the shot as much as he should. But if you get him the puck around the crease, he can make goalies look stupid and he did that quite a few times. And when you saw that, you're like, okay, combine that with the speed and there's something here. And then at the very end of the main session, because the way they do it is they have a skills session and then they have a mix session. The mix session is where you get the competition, you know, between forwards to the fence room, between forwards and other forwards, then you have the skills, which is a little bit more individualized, but at the end of the mix session, that's when you really started to see when, because one of the things that scouts talk about, you see, you saw it when you watched them, but like scouts love his competitiveness. They love the fact that, you know, this is a guy who will play physical, who will back check hard, who will battle along the boards. And I think he started to finally build up enough confidence by the end that you were really starting to see that competitiveness. You started to see why, like, even if he doesn't, even if he doesn't make it as a top six center and I'm sure that's what the flyers think he can be, but even if he doesn't, he's going to be a hell of a bottom six fast center, because he has that competitive drive and he has that willingness to engage that, that keeps his floor higher than like top six or boss like a Massimo Rizzo, let's say. That's great. It's nice to know that he has that mix of those skills. Just in terms of what you said to begin with, with shielding the puck, protecting the puck, do you think that's something that can just come with reps, like as he learns how defenders are going to attack him, he can figure out like using either his speed or his awesome athleticism? Like, I remember reading about the grip strikes that it was absolutely incredible. And to me, that's like, all right, one hand on the stick shielding, use other arm to ward off a defender, like, do you think he has the tools to kind of figure out that part of his game? Because if he's going to carry the puck a lot and with his speed, you hope he would, that's something you kind of want. Yeah, I think it can be it's, there's a reason why scouts talk a lot about the idea of pace that players have to pay and play with pace. And that is speed, you know, that's carrying the puck fast, it's keeping your legs moving so that back checkers can't get chopped to you. But what it also is, is it's making decisions quick. And that's something you always hear when people move up a level, when they go to college or juniors, when they go to the AHL from college or they go to the NHL from the AHL, it's just that you have to make all of your decisions faster because everyone is a little bit faster. They, they attack you a little bit more aggressively. They're a little bit bigger. So they're reaches, you know, taking away your time of space is a little bit more. And my hope is, is that even as camp progresses, he's going to turn the puck over less because he gets used to the fact that, you know, these guys engage, they close gaps quicker than players do in juniors. And then he might have to make the same adjustment when he gets to the AHL or the same adjustment that he gets to the NHL. If he just skips the AHL entirely, like this could be something where he just has to adapt to the pace of the defense that he's facing and just learn how to make decisions with the puck quicker, whether that's a pass, whether that's moving the puck away from an oncoming stick check just a little bit quicker because you don't quite have the same time that you have in juniors. We'll see if he can do it. It's not a guarantee. You know, sometimes players can't learn how to deal with the increased pace because they don't have the hockey processing ability. They don't have the IQ. And that is something that some scouts were worried about Luchenko that, you know, he's got all these tools. He's this physical freak in terms of, you know, how they did the combine and everything. But does he have the hockey IQ to take full advantage? That's one of the questions. The reason why wasn't a slam dunk top 10 pick, but I do think it's possible for you to learn how to play and think with more pace as long as you do it a lot. You get a lot of reps. I do think so. And it looks like Bill's first and again. So I guess I will just keep going. Apologies for technical issues. Bill is down the shore, I believe, at an Airbnb and the connection is not great apparently. So I'm going to go into what I would say is probably my biggest standout of the day. And that was one Oliver Bonk. And Bonk, you know, he had a really interesting interview yesterday with the media. He really opened up. He's not usually the most loquacious person in the world to talk to, but he was really good yesterday when we spoke with him after the initial segment of development camp. And what he said was, "I might not be the biggest, the fastest, the strongest. I might not be the best at anything, but I'm good at everything." And that was something that was abundantly clear today. It was that this is someone who he isn't the fastest skater, but he's a good skater. He doesn't have the best shot, but he can be goalies. He isn't the most dynamic on the breakout, but he can pass the puck accurately and get the puck up by sweat. He was just good at everything. And the one thing that he was, I will say, legitimately great at, and this is interesting, he was really, really good defensively. And he hasn't, well, he's generally viewed to be a two-way defenseman in that that's what he projects to be. He wasn't perfect defensively in London last year. He hasn't been perfect defensively. He's still kind of, I think, learning the finer points of, you know, closing gaps quick and how to use a stick exactly the way he should to be able to be a shutdown level guy at the NHL level, or at least a good defensive defense fit at the NHL level. Well, today, he was basically perfect in terms of defense. When he was defending two-on-ones, when he was defending two-on-tos, he was just breaking up plays constantly, just constantly. And it was really impressive to see because at last year's camp and whatnot, it wasn't as apparent that he was going to potentially have the upside day, a really, really good defensive defenseman. Today, I have some really good videos, and keep an eye out. I will be doing my end-of-camp wrap-up monster article that I do every year. This will be my first one for the NHL wide, but I've done enough for the athletic that if you follow me all that time, you'll know what to expect, a lot of observations, a lot of quotes, a lot of videos. But when I do that, I will have multiple videos of what Oliver Bonk did today, basically just kind of being like the Gandalf, you shall not pass type of player against him, because people were trying to get around them, they were trying to pass the puck through him, and Bonk was just right there. He was right there, and he was always making the right read, his gap was tight, his stick was active. He did everything you want to see, a guy whose defensive play projects well on the NHL level. He did everything you're supposed to do on that front. I was really hoping Bill would be back by now, does not look like he is. I guess I'll just keep going with more observations of players at development camp. Alex Bump, he looked real good, honestly. Alex Bump is a fifth round pick, he's a college guy, but he shines at these. This isn't the first development camp I've seen him at, and he always stands out at these devcams. He shines again today, and it's just because for a later round pick, for a guy who not a lot of people talk about, he's got serious skill. This guy, he's not Luchenko level fast, but he's a good skater. You can see he's got powerful strides, he's got good technique, he has a separation gear, at least at these camps. I don't know if he quite has it in college or the pros, but here, he's a pretty good skater, and then skill wise, he can beat goal, he's clean, he can dangle, he's got moves. I think Bump is one of those guys that maybe I don't even talk about enough. We didn't rank him in our top 20, myself and Alex Bure. We did not rank him in our top 20 back in February, I believe it was when he did it. We did our last PHLI top 20 prospects list. We probably should have. I remember when we did the list, I'll say this, there was a person in the Flyers organization that reached out after the list was done and essentially said, surprise Bump isn't on there, we really like it. You can see why the skill is there, he's most likely going to be a winger at the next level, but he's the kind of guy where, maybe you lucked into a Middlesex caliber player, not saying he's going to be a star. I think they really have maybe three guys in this pipeline with legitimate blue chip potential. Obviously Mitch Caulth who still counts as a prospect, you have Oliver Bonk who if he had a ceiling, maybe he could be a first pair of defense fin, and now you have Luchenko who potentially could be a top six center. So I don't think that Alex Bump even in an ideal world is going to be a top line. Let's take a chill pill on that front. However, however, and this is important, it's important to get good Middlesex fingers and if those Middlesex fingers are being gotten in the fifth round, pretty darn good. Not sure if we have any updates on Bill, I don't know how much longer I can do this. I guess I'll just keep rolling, but Bill ain't here yet, so I really appreciate everybody for hanging in. I guess I'm just going to turn this into prospect development camp observation day. Yeah, but I also don't have any ad reads. So I guess we're not doing ad reads because I don't have any of this prepared. That's Bill. All right, let's see, who else can I talk about? Oh, just a little update on Massimo Rizzo because I did tweet this out, but if you don't follow me on Twitter, Rizzo, he's a guy who I think has a sizable fan base in the Fliers fandom. He was the player that got in the trade, well, really it was a bio, but it was basically a trade. I meant to say bio in the Tony D'Angelo bio. Functionally a trade, the Fliers get Massimo Rizzo for the rice David Kasia who will probably never again play in the NHL ever again. So they get Massimo Rizzo, top scorer for the University of Denver and signed this year. Now he's turning pro Rizzo, however, and a Nick Schultz we spoke with today did mention this. He ended the season with a high ankle sprint, kept him out for a significant period of time at the end of the season with the University of Denver. He did come back for the National Championship game, was very severely hampered though in that game. He's still recovering from his high ankle sprint. He is on the ice. He is here. We actually spoke with him, but he's not going to be participating in the bulk of camp. So he's participating in the individual sessions. So the skills sessions, the ones I talked about like where it's just the forward skating around is doing those. However, what he's not doing is he's not doing the mixed sessions, which are the more competitive sessions, nor is he going to be in the scrimmage on Saturday. So that is the story with Massimo Rizzo. It's a bummer. I really would have liked to have seen him deal with competitive, competitive atmosphere at this camp. But apparently they're planning to save with him. It's not that he's banged up, but he is, they are keeping him out of the competitive aspects of camp bill your back. Yeah. Yeah. I think I have some sort of solution to this issue, at least for now. I'm sorry, fam. It's, are you talking about Massimo Rizzo, Charlie? Yeah, I got through another three players because I just had to kill time. That's what makes you the best in the business, bud. So Rizzo, he's some sort of banged up I saw today, like he's doing the forwards only drills, but maybe the battle stuff, they're just like, I think he has a high ankle sprain, they said. Yeah. Yeah. His, he had the high ankle sprain at the end of his college season. Okay. He came back for the national championship game, but was not a hundred percent. Obviously the kid just wanted to be in the national championship game understandable. He's basically back. He's just getting back on the ice now though, full time. So I think they just don't want to push it with him. That's smart. Yeah. Just as we want to see these guys and Rizzo is a player who I think we all have a little bit of interest in because he seems like Carolina was just like, yeah, we're good. Like, Oh, we'll give him to you for Tony DeAngelo because you're just getting rid of this guy. And then even after there wasn't a trade, it was still like, yeah, here, have him. Yeah, that's fine. And then you see the numbers he put up in college and it's there might be something there. So it's, I think a lot of people are interested in Massimo Rizzo plus, you know, he's got the Italian name. We all love that here in South Italy, even those of us who aren't the least bit Italian. So you got to a bonk and bump as well. I saw somebody in the comments earlier say I was sitting on a a bonk bed and I thought that was very, very bad. That's good. That's that's good stuff. But one of the players, we talked a little bit about yesterday and then a lot of people in the on Twitter forwarded me pictures of an interview Denver Barkey did and it was like, no, he still looks 12 Denver Barkey put up the huge numbers. I think 102 points in the OHL regular season for London last year and really good numbers in the playoffs as well. We know about the, you know, he's undersized. He's underdeveloped, but there's something there considering his production. What did you see from Denver Barkey today and did you get a chance to talk to him? We did. We did talk Denver Barkey. He does still look like a child. So that has not, that has not changed much. He does look a little bit more built. So it doesn't, it doesn't seem like he's done nothing and he said like his main focus now is putting on, wait, you know, he's got to get stronger. He knows he's small. He knows that if he's going to hold up at the NHL level, he is going to have to, you know, maybe not be like quite Marty St. Louis level jacked, but like he has to, you know, he has to be ripped to be able to hold up at a five nine frame. He does. So he's working on it. He does look a little bit stronger, but yeah, he still has a baby face. He's still tiny. I thought he had an okay day. I don't think he was one of the standouts. He made some plays, he had one nice play where it, he got stuffed for a chance and then battled to get the puck back and did a wrap around to beat the goalie to the far post. That was a very classic, you know, Denver Barkey dogs got that Barkey in them kind of play that we hear so much about. I wouldn't say he necessarily showcase high skill, but the effort was there, he had some good shots. He made some plays. He had a solid there. The more I watch and hear about Denver Barkey, do you think a Scott Lawton with a little bit more offensive upside as a fair, if not comparison than ceiling? I don't know. I don't know if that is if that's giving him enough credit just because like we know what the lawton is, but look, if they can get a 35, 40 point energy middle to bottom sixer out of a third round pick and Denver Barkey, I'm sure they'll be happy. I think he might have a little bit more offensive upside to him to be honest with you. I think the skill is there. It's not, he's not going to dangle through people. It doesn't have that kind of game break and talent, but I do think that I think there's more skill there than just being, than is ceiling, just being another Scott Lawton. I think there's more there. That's great to hear. No, that's, that's awesome to, to hear about. Right now, I think is a great time to tell you about our friends over at True Mark Financial. And one of the things everyone at True Mark wants you to know is that while you're probably locked in, you've been with your bank a while, there's a really good chance. You've been backing with them for years. It is much easier than you think to switch from a bank to a credit union. And the reason you want to do this is because the benefits are, to me, almost a no brainer. One of the things that really sets True Mark and credit unions apart from the big banks is the ownership structure. Banks are typically for profit institutions owned by shareholders. 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Let's go to indeed.com/alcity right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast, indeed.com/allcity, terms and conditions apply, need to hire, you need, indeed. We all know how difficult it is hiring, like I've never been management, ownership sort of management, but I have worked for some small businesses and finding quality candidates, it's real freaking difficult. So do yourself a favor, sign up at indeed.com/allcity and make sure you take care, take advantage of our discount provided. All right, Charlie. You talked about Oliver Bonk, I'm sure you said some glowing things about him, the what I heard this morning. He did a great job and did a great job in the Russian defense. Yeah, he was one of the standouts of the day was Oliver Bonk and to be expected, a first round pick last year, he's up against some guys who he might be a little bit older than and coming out of the season, he just had in London. This dude factors in majorly for the fliers future, like he's in the future plans very much as a, you know, a former first round pick, but I want to talk about some of the other defensemen. First and foremost, that's my guy, Chuck, we got to talk about Hunter McDonald. I just, I was wondering who you were referring to. I have been sold on him because they love him so much. What did you see out of our giant boy today? So he was okay, I would say that the one thing that does, that does pop for him, and I believe it was Nick Schult who spoke on him today, he is a good skater for his size, he is, the skating is, it's not high end, you know, he's not, he's not going to be a burner, we're not talking about like a saliva type where he is a really, really good skater, even if he was six foot, not being six, seven, but he can move, he can move, he has some, some jumps and bursts, he's not super slow. I don't think he's ever going to be confused for a burner, but he's got some wheels, and that's good to see from a defensive defensemen. And that was something that Nick Schult pointed out is that, you know, wow, he is a little bit of a throwback in terms of physicality, and in terms of nastiness, he's not a throwback to the old defensive defensemen who just were pylons and stood there and hit people. He can move and he can pass the puck and he showed that today too. He's not a super creative passer, but he does have the ability to make a first pass while in their four check in pressure, at least he showed that today, which is a good sign. The negative with Hunter McDonald, I think this is probably always going to be a negative with him. You know, if he has the puck on the rush or if he's got the puck moving up ice, he doesn't really know what to do with it. You know, he's not going to be creating chances. Oh good. I want to, if he's, if he's on a two on one, like, and he's got the puck, best you're going to be hoping for is a shot right in the goal of these paths, I think. Like we're not talking about a guy who is especially creative with the puck. And that was abundantly clear today. It's really abundantly clear if he's looking at his stats from his collegiate career. That is a score bunch. Now he might score a little bit more in the NHL because if he's got a good first pass, gets the puck to a, you know, gets the puck to the center, center makes a good pass up to the winger, boom, breakout goal, he might pick up some secondary assists, but I'm not expecting Hunter McDonald, even if he makes it and is a good player, to be directly generating a ton of offense. But I'd say that from a first pass standpoint, for a skating standpoint, you look fine. And these drills weren't especially physical. So a lot of his biggest strength as a player, or so we've been told, is his physicality, is his nastiness, is that he plays at that edge. The drills they did today were not necessarily made to show that off. So maybe maybe on Friday, they will be a little bit more physical and maybe Hunter McDonald will shine a little bit more because that'll play more to his strengths. Just side note, when you said like, okay, the best thing you can ask for is a shot right into the goal, these pads, I thought, well, you know what, that's a, that's a zone finish offensive zone. I'll take it. You're the, you're the advanced stats guy. Remember when we used to talk a ton about zone starts and zone finishes? What happened to that? Have we just evolved past it? Like, oh, yeah, shit doesn't actually matter. Like, I feel like we used to talk about it a lot. And now it doesn't come up as much. Just, just the thought I am. It's an interesting, it's an interesting question. I would say that it does matter. I think the reason why people in the analyst community, there's really two reasons why people in the analyst community don't talk about it as much. The first reason is that while it does have an impact on results, it's not quite as large of an impact as I think was originally assumed by people in the stats community. It can still be very impactful if like your usage is extremely skewed, but very few players these days have that kind of skewed usage. So it really doesn't have a huge impact. And second, the best models that we use, you know, models like RAPM at evolving hockey, models like SG at hockeyvis.com, the best public models they bake in an adjustment for zone starts and face offs and whatnot. So it's not something we really have to talk about as much because it's already baked into the model. So sometimes when I'm writing an article, I'll say like one of the reasons why this model can be trusted is because it accounts for things like quality competition and quality of teammates and zone starts. But I don't really bring up the zone starts that often anymore because it's kind of a priority implicit in the model's reason. All right. So we weren't, it wasn't crazy for us to be mad at Craig Barooby for being like, well, Patrice Bergeron starts a lot of ships in the Zidizone. The reason I think like the reason I think Barooby got fired was his answer on the Sean Couture a question is what I've always thought. But I was just thinking about that the other day back when I was a back when I was still writing. I remember being like, oh, we talked about this a lot. It was something that came up sometimes and just doesn't seem to anymore. But I think the stats, like you said, like they've evolved enough that it's not, it's not every individual stat. We have these models that like kind of all the, the all encompassing sort of like winds above the replacement sort of thing like that. Anyway, that was just my little tangent I wanted to go on because it was something I was thinking about the other day and wanted to bring up to you at some point. I want to get back to a couple of forwards that we've talked about a bit recently just in terms of, hey, you know, they have no centers except for these two guys in the system. Cole Knubel and Owen McLachlan, how have they been looking? Yeah, I would say Owen McLachlan has stood out a bit more. There's things he could tell. He needs to work on. He's not the best. And this is actually something to Sean Couture a struggled a bit with in the first part of his career. I'm paring on McDonald's Sean Couture. It just came to mind when I was watching Sean Couture in the beginning of his NHL career was really bad, like actively bad at receiving passes cleanly. Like his first touch of the puck was very clunky. And as a result, it slowed him down moving up ice because he had to spend a little bit extra quarter of a second settling the puck before he started moving and it just slowed everything down. McLachlan, I saw more than a few times today him struggling a little bit to handle pucks right off of the pass and it just made everything appear slower. But I like his instincts. He has some offensive instincts. I like the fact that when you watch him, when you watch him in drills and you watch him support his defenseman, he just looks like a center. He seems to think like a center and that's exciting to me. So McLachlan is intriguing. There's some skills there and you watch him and you're just like, there's something there. I don't know if he's ever going to put it all together, but there's something there. That's a good find in the seventh round, in my opinion. Plus he's local. He's free grew up mostly in like Phoenixville around Valley Forge, I believe. So that'd be cool. Be cool to have a fliers fan, a fliers player that would be neat. As for Cole Knubel, look, he doesn't show at least to my eyes a ton of skill, but in drills where it was a little bit more defensive, where the idea was, you know, forced to trying to break up passes, they're trying to get physically engaged. I noticed him there. I noticed him being disruptive. And that fits. It fits because his ceiling in the NHL, if he makes it, is probably that of a 4c. What do 4c's do? They play defensive hockey, they break things up. So and K Red says, thought Knubel was a wing. You probably thought that because his dad was a wing and look, Cole Knubel might end up getting pushed over to wing long term, but I think the idea of picking him was that maybe he could be like a 4c or a bottom six. All right. Yeah. When you just thinking about this issue, McLachlan's having, it sounds like we need to get Gordon Bombay out there with the with the eggs to do with the eggs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's what we need to be. That's probably how we should be spending our spending our time. Spencer Gill, defenseman. What was he a second round pick just this latest weekend? And yeah, the fliers traded up for Spencer Gill. Good guy. But as you mentioned yesterday, rail thin, very tall, but might need to put on a little bit of weight. Allah Travis Sandheim. Look how that worked out for him. What do you see in out of Spencer? He looked fine. I wouldn't say he jumped out to me per se. One thing that I'll say about about, about Gildo today is that he, I wouldn't quite say it impressed me, but he was a better skater than I thought he was going to be. I guess it's the best way to put it. Because he certainly isn't a great skater by any means, but he wasn't, he didn't jump out of me as looking like a slow skater. He just looked fine. Okay. Yeah. The acceleration, he probably could stand to, to increase his explosiveness, a few notches to be sure. But he didn't look slow. He just looked okay, which is better than I went into can't anticipate and he would look like, I thought he was going to look slow and his mechanics were going to look bad. Like, he looks okay. I think there's something to work with there from the skating standpoint. If you, you know, work on the strength, you know, he does more training and builds up those, those leg muscles, he could become a, you know, again, not expecting to ever be a dominant skater, you know, a burner, he could be a, you know, an average to slightly above average skater and given his size, how big he is, if he fills out, that might be all he'll, he'll need to fully take advantage of his frame and his reach and all those inherent physical advantages that he already has. All right. That's good to know that he can skate a bit better than you thought because it does seem like they focus on these, especially in this draft maybe, but it's, it's been a running theme. Like, oh, yeah, just needs to work on that skating a little bit and honest, like to play in the current NHL, you have to be at least like average is bad, you know, like you have to be a pretty damn, like you have to be a pretty damn good skater to even be considered. Yeah. He's all right. Like in today's NHL, it's so much about the skating that if guys seem a little bit ahead of where we thought they were, that gives them so much more potential to even just play in the league because dog, it's tough to keep up out there. It is freaking the game is faster than it has ever been. But I want to change gears for a minute. Only one of the three goalies at camp is an actual prospect. The other two are camp inventings. We know about a Lexi Colossev and that whole thing will have more information on that when you do probably, you know, but Carson Bjarnison is one of the goalie prospects in this organization. I'm not asking you to break down if he's doing the reverse V H or whatever, two months. That's, that's not what we're doing here. And I don't expect you to know the ins and outs of goal tending, Charlie. But just like, I don't, compared to compared to the other two goalies who aren't even prospects, they're invitees. This is a, a draft pick from last year who I'm pretty sure they moved up to get. He considerably outshining the other two. Like how would you grade him, I guess, after a day and a half or whatever it's been? I, yeah, I try to avoid grading goalies, but I will say it seems like he's stopping more pucks generally. I really, it's really hard for me to evaluate goalies at this camp. It always has been like even dating back to the days when everyone wanted to hear everything about hard heart. Like it's difficult because my focus is generally speaking, we're going to be on the guys doing the things rather than the guy trying to stop them from finishing the things. I'm focused on, you know, skating, reach, burst, shot, vision, smarts, those kinds of things. Whereas the goalie, I'm not really looking at his pre shot positioning or his, you know, his explosiveness, you know, going side to side. This is not what I'm focusing on when I'm watching the play. The only times goalies really jump out of you are either A, they give up a really weak goal. B, they make a spectacular save, which does happen on occasion. I don't remember any today that maybe jump, but that happens. Sometimes a goalie, you're like, holy crap, I was a great save. Don't remember any of those from any of them. And then the third thing you notice is in the scrimmages. The scrimmages is really where you can, you can pick up goalie quality. Like I remember Sam Harrison, for example, a few years ago when he was a development camp. I didn't really recognize that he was having a good camp until I watched three other scrimmages and every team with Sam Harrison kept winning because he was basically a wall out there and you're like, holy shit, this guy, this guy might have something here. So the scrimmage to me is going to be when you'll get a better read on Bjarnison and how good the camp is really doing, or at least I will. Like if he has Jason Murchita, so you can probably tell you 10 things about Carson Bjarnison because he's goalie and he dares the shit. I don't and I will never pretend to be a goalie expert. It's a world that I believe I will probably always be on the outside looking into. But I would say he looked okay. It's like I always say anyway, Charlie, goalies aren't real people. Listen, I just like that's I was like, does he look better than the other two because the other two were like probably never going to be pros or at least not at any, you know, not with this organization with the fannoms or the flyers or even the royals or something probably. And this guy, you got to believe factors in somewhere considering the draft capital they spent to get him. And that's I always think back to like evaluating goalies. Like when it was Felix Sandstrom and Carter hard at these things and it would be like, yo, feel like Sandstrom, man, he is making some highlight safes. Every shot just see, I don't know, Carter Hart, he looks fine. Every shot's hitting him in the chest. And they're like, well, yeah, hearts team one, seven, four, like, oh, oh, yeah, and it's just a lot of times when you're evaluating the goalie, especially as not a goalie expert, you're like, oh, the big save. It really stands out. So yeah, but he led in three five hole goals on not lasers, you know, and it would just be. Yeah, it's just tough. It's tough to do. I want to talk about some of the invitees, Kootishov, the defenseman is one of them. Has there been any like standouts like maybe a Phil Myers or something like that that you go, oh, yeah, he might have something here of any of the non rostered or non drafted guys kind of, oh, he might get a contract out of this. So I generally hate this question and to give you the back to give you the background. It actually is a running joke in is a running joke in the press box, like in the in the media workroom during development camp and then also rookie camp because what one thing that I get sometimes is I get DMS from people and I get it like it's not me like being angry at that, but like a lot of times I'll get DMS from like friends or family members of camp invite and they will ask me like, how's he looking? And I always have to say like, I'm not really focused on like I'm like, I'm trying to evaluate the players. And this is where the running joke comes from. I'm trying to evaluate the players who have contracts who I know are part of the organization. I can just there are so many guys on the ice at one time that I use when there's a rep going on with all camp invites, I use that as a time to like take a note down or check my phone to make sure a video turned out okay or just catch a breath and keep and like try to look for okay and how many reps does Jet Lucengo come up? I got to be ready to take that next video, that kind of thing. So I usually don't notice the camp invites and I feel bad that I don't, but I just don't that set and I will say this. And then by rarely catch my attention, Jack Williams, who was 100 McDonald's teammate at Northeastern, he looked good today and he was a guy where there were there would be a lot of times where I would take a video of like he would be doing something cool and I take a video and then I checked the video again and I'd be like, Oh, that was Jack Williams. Like that wasn't a prospect. That was this camp invite and that happened on multiple occasions. Now he's 22, so he's old for the camp. He's not that big. He's 5'11" 170". So I'm not exactly expecting this guy to like get a contract, but I will say that as someone who almost never notices camp invites, I notice Jack Williams that he had a good day. Charlie, look at that. I ask you a question you have no interest in answering and you give a phenomenal answer. It's like you're good at this or something. I think we've hit on a lot of the bigger name guys. Is there anyone who has really, and again, it's one day of drills, you know, I fully get that. But outside of the bigger name guys, the players we've mentioned, like has maybe a Carter Southeran or the Ruhonen, do we know how to pronounce Ruhonen or whatever's name yet? Has anyone really stood out to you outside of the Jet Luchenko's Oliver Box dudes that need to stand out because shit if they don't, ugh. Yeah, well, I'll go into a guy who has stood out to me so far, but before that I do want to touch on Carter Southeran because it's interesting what I heard today about Carter Southeran from Nick Schultz because Nick Schultz obviously is one of the development coaches. He was asked about Carter Southeran by, I believe, Jackie from the Inquirer. And Nick Schultz, I wouldn't say he threw the gauntlet down, but he more or less said like, yeah, Carter Southeran's going to have to have a real good second like second year after his drafts in juniors if he wants to earn a contract. So for you big, so Carter Southeran fans out there, Nick Schultz did not make it seem like it is a guarantee that the fliers are going to be signing Carter Southeran after his second year post draft in juniors. So Southeran needs to have, it seems like at least, he needs that take a pretty big step this year for them to think he's worthy of a contract, which is interesting because I always viewed him as like, hey, he's a solid fifth round pick. He's got size, he's a righty shot. He's a lock for a contract. He had a good year for Portland this year, at least by the numbers doesn't seem like that's as much of a certainty. I don't think the fliers are fully sold on him as a pro level prospect, at least not yet. But you asked me if there's anybody else who has stood out to me. I would say, and I don't think he stood out necessarily as much today, although he did make some plays, and he's just noticeable out there, but he just has a presence about him. Another fifth round pick, the fifth round pick from this year, Noah Powell, he was impressive. He's got size that the skating needs work, but you can tell there's something there with it. Like, once he gets going, he can move, needs to work on that acceleration that explosive in this. The footwork isn't the best, but he's got size, he's got good hands around the net, his shot jumps off of the stick, the release and the power is legitimate, he's a noticeable guy out there. And it's cool. One thing that's cool about him, and this is something that I believe it was Scott Wheeler, who mentioned this in his post draft article, Scott Wheeler basically said that Noah Powell is functionally deaf, that is true, he is not completely deaf, he can hear, he has hearing aids in one as we hear a little bit, but he has very, very poor hearing, and he basically has to lean on lip reading to be able to fully communicate with his coaches. You can see him on the ice kind of staring down his coaches when they're talking, he's trying to match up what sounds he can hear while reading the lips, and also when he's on the bench, he often has to turn around to see what the coach is saying, rather than just have them yelling in his ear, because obvious reasons. So it's a pretty cool thing for him, but I would say he pops over these first few days to be sure. That's great to, I just chuckled because I thought it would be, he's North American, I assume. I thought it would be, I thought it would be really funny if he was like Matt Vay-Michkov or something, and he's like learning English through the coach yelling at him, and it's like, yeah, man, like the only words he knows are fuck. We effectively only taught this dude swear words through him lip reading from the coach who's an absolute freakin maniac, but no, that's, it is a really cool story. We talked about it a bit yesterday. It's cool, he won't have to listen too much to John Tortorella because who we want to, and I just saw in our comments, we have a little bit of breaking news, and this is brought to you by, indeed, listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility and indeed.com/allcity, that's indeed.com/allcity terms and conditions apply, need to hire, you need indeed, Bobby Brink. He is signed, Charlie, two years at 1.5 million average annual value, seems fair. I'm glad that they got this done. When they bought out Cam Atkinson, it seemed to signal, well, obviously that needed to happen, but also, we need this kid to play every night, like he showed us some in the beginning of last season, he fell off, got demoted, last game of the season, we all know, he along with Morgan Frost sat for the second half of the game, it's part of the development process. Okay, if you say so, coach, you know better than I do, I guess, we need to teach these kids to play in these games by not letting them play in the games. Whatever, you know better than I do, coach. What do you think about Bobby Brink two years, 1.5? Yeah, this is just a logical contract. I don't think he showed enough to make anyone, including the fan base, comfortable giving him a super long-term extension, paying him like four or five million a year for seven years. I don't think we quite know what the flyers have in Bobby Brink, but he certainly should be part of this in the at least short term while they're trying to figure out who's going to be part of this over the long term. I think he showed something last year, and it's a fair value short term contract. If you look at evolving hockey has a great contract projections model where they look at, you know, all the comparable statistical players to a guy who's up for free agency, and they take a guess on what his contract is going to be by using their model. Their projected contract for Bobby Brink was a two year contract with a $1.5, $8, $7 million per cap hit, that is basically what this is, they got an $87,000 a year savings per the model. So good job, Danny, you saved $160,000, good work. But no, this is just, I think it was an easy contract relatively speaking because he so wasn't a candidate for a long-term deal. They got him on a two year contract with him getting about what he's worth. So now the only guy left as a restricted free agent who is notable is Jager's a mole, he's it. So, and then after that, then Danny is theoretically done unless he wants to make a trade, which I do believe they are still looking at him. Charlie, you know, I've been looking, I've been looking for Danny to win one of these negotiations and that 87 K a year, that's something, that's something, I'm talking it up, I'm chalking it up as a as a victory, Charlie. Before we get to today's super chats, I want to tell you about my shady raise. You've got to get ready to season ahead with quality shades built to last. Our friends at shady raise have you covered with premium polarized shades that won't break the bank. 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Head to shady raise.com and use code PHLY for 35% off polarized shades. Try for yourself the shades rated five stars by over 300,000 people. And while I have you listening to me, let me tell you about the big event coming up on Saturday, July 13th, it is the inaugural and I think we have it spelled right this time. The inaugural PHLY Liberty open at Valleybrook Country Club in Blackwood, New Jersey. It's Saturday, July 13th, it's a scramble format. You can sign up as a single a for some or you can even sponsor a whole of this tournament. It's 18 holes with a cart tournament gifts and tea prizes, taste of Philly dinner and post round ceremony at the pavilion unlimited draft beer for two hours post round contests and team prizes on the course will be out there. It's going to be a great time. Charlie's going to be playing starts at two o'clock on July 13th. Make sure you head over to all PHLY.com. Hit the events tab, check out the calendar and figure it out, man, because this is it's going to be a great time. Make sure you are there Saturday, the July 13th at the Valleybrook Country Club for this event and the Mitch Cobb mania shirt. They're selling like hotcakes. Make sure you get the PHLY locker.com right now while supplies last, they're not going to last forever. People they've caught the Mitch Cobb mania. It's running wild. People want this shirt. They're going to want yours while you can get it PHLY locker.com. All right, Chuck, we have some super chats I want to get to before we wrap up today. So Brenna, if you would be so kind, hit us with the super chats. First one from Dylan Phillips, PHLY and SIC this weekend, PHLY meet up at the OD. I'm in Seattle. I'm around. I'm actually, I got to go back up to the real world for a little bit for Ava's Quizzo at PJ Willahans, but other than that, I'm down here till Saturday. People have recognized me. Charlie, you've got a lot of fans down here, like, oh, Bill, I love you and I freaking love Charlie, man. Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks, bro. I'm talking to you though. Yeah. I'm cool though. I'm cool too. But yeah, we got a lot of fans down here in Seattle. I've run into quite a few of them. Thank you so much because I have a running. I have a running contest with my wife to see who gets recognized more. And like she is the bigger platform, famous dad, you know, like, I'm at a disadvantage here. But when they come up to me and be like, Oh, I love your shit. I'm like, Oh, yeah. So make sure you do that. I am not a standoffish person. I want the attention. Very much. All right. I wish I was in Seattle, but unfortunately, unfortunately, there is development camp. I'll have my time down the shore. Charlie will have his time. The next one from Adam S, I thought Noah Powell was pretty noticeable today. When I was there, Guy works really hard. Also Sam Moran is huge. Well, I mean, Sam Moran, what was it? 2012. Oh my God. Was it that? Well, 2013 2012. Yeah, like 2020. Yeah, maybe what is 2013? I think it was 13 either way, it was 10 years ago. Yeah. Because I think 2012 might have been a lot in draft. That's when Steph came up with the quote from a flier scout who said what we look for is a defenseman who can shit standing up at the back of a pickup truck. That's that's what they're looking for. And yes, I mean, yeah, absolutely. The guy is a monster and they've always been looking for that really since then. The next, I think we have one more super chat from, yeah, the name Roba goal premature predictions, please, of the players in development camp, who will reach NHL first and when. Ooh, interesting question. Do you think like I'm going? Yeah, I'm going to go with our with our favorite prospect, Hunter McDonald, they love him so much. Like, well, the thing is that I think he has a good chance of at least getting in a game this season. Okay. And while like, he's like, all of her bonk is going back to you. It's like, that's happened, whereas it would not blow me away if Hunter McDonald, maybe he doesn't make the team out of camp, but I would, it seems like they are setting up for Hunter McDonald's would at least get a taste of the NHL this season. So I'm going to go with Hunter McDonald, you know, I was going to say Oliver bonk. But yeah, like Hunter McDonald's already a pro. He's in allen town. They love him to death. Like, I can very much see him at least getting the, you know, last couple of games of the season. A game, whatever it is. So yeah, and just in terms of getting here, having NHL stats and ice time on hockey reference, I think Hunter McDonald's probably the safest bet that that makes a ton of sense to me. Yeah. I think there's, yeah, yeah, I think if there's anybody else, so I even think has a chance to beat him. I mean, I guess if he just doesn't make it at all, then it's probably bonk because bonk is, I would say, it's him and Luchenko are the two best prospects at this camp and Luchenko is your after the year after bonk. So you would think that bonk probably has the leg up on getting to the NHL sooner. But yeah, I think I think that the slam dog answer is harder without him. Unless Hunter McDonald just severely disappoints them. And I don't know if it's possible at this point for him to disappoint them as much as they love him. Well, I think he's in the NHL. And he at least gets a game this season. I'll tell you, it is probably easiest for your favorite child to disappoint you. Like if it's someone you had no expectations for, it's like, yeah, whatever. But they love him so much. But no, I think, I think the safe bet is probably a Hunter McDonald. All right, Charlie, before we get out of here, is there anything else you wanted to touch on today? Thank you so much for carrying the show while I was figuring out my connection. Very much appreciated that you're able to do that. But I think we have a fix so that Friday's show will go on without a hitch. We'll be able to do that. Obviously we're off for the fourth tomorrow. I hope everyone has an awesome Fourth of July. Be careful with them fireworks. Light them on the ground. Do not like them in your hand. Very, very important not to do that. I'm all for playing with explosives. It's a lot of fun. Love it. But be smart, you know, especially you've had a couple of beers. Fourth of July. Be smart. All right. That's all I'm saying. Charlie, anything before we wrap up? No, I just wish everybody happy fourth July. Have a good day off. We will be back on Friday after the final full day of development camp and then Saturday will be the scrimmage and we'll break that down on Monday. All right. That is all the time we have for you on PHO Live Flyers today. Thank you all for listening. Thank you for hanging out. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button follows right here on YouTube. Let those reminders see and never miss a live show. We'll be back on Friday at 4 p.m. for more development camp news and notes. Maybe some more off season stuff as well. Who's to say it's going to be a fun F around Friday no matter what. Also follow us on Twitter at PHO I underscore flyers, follow the podcast, just search PHO Y flyers, wherever you get those. That's it. My name is Bill Matts. That's Charlie O'Connor until Friday. Happy fourth of July, fan.
While the current Philadelphia Flyers roster may not be making many headlines, the future of the organization is on the ice in Voorhees for development camp. After a less-than-newsworthy day 1, the prospects are back and displaying a little bit more on day 2.
Charlie, who has been on the scene at the Flyers Training Facility, and Bill discuss the up-and-comers like 2024 first rounder Jett Luchanko, last year’s breakout prospect Oliver Bonk, and much more on today’s edition of PHLY FLYERS!
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