Help is on the way for struggling Flyers
Less than a week after the Philadelphia Flyers concluded a miserable 25-23-8 season, their AHL affiliate in Lehigh Valley wrapped up an encouraging one in which most of the organization’s top young talent was on display throughout and showed more than just an occasional glimpse of things to come.
The Phantoms were robbed of a season-ending victory over the Binghamton Devils at home on Sunday when Ryan Fitzgerald clearly, according to replays, scored in overtime, only to have the referee rule that the puck never crossed the line. Then they fell in a shootout. But the botched call did little to diminish how well their young and veteran players came together to go 18-7-4-2.
“Low maintenance,” is how coach Scott Gordon described this season’s team. That depiction resonates with one of the squad’s elder statesmen, 34-yearold center Cal O’Reilly.
“We had a ton of veteran guys and a lot of guys on this team for the younger guys to see how to get to work every day and you can’t take days off,” O’Reilly said. “And we did a great job of that. I was glad to see [it] because sometimes ... you don’t have teams like that, and there can be a lot of selfish players or guys who think they should be the NHL and they’re down here, so they’re not happy. But this year, we didn’t have any of that. We had guys that bought in, and it was great to see.”
Most of their youngest players are more than a year away from the NHL, but all played as if they were in line to be the first to get called up.
Players like 22-year-old defenseman Linus Hogberg, 18-year-old right winger Zayde Wisdom, 19-year-old defenseman Mason Millman, 2019 first-round pick Cam York and 2020 first-round pick Tyson Foerster.
Gordon identified his three most-improved players as Hogberg, Foerster and 21-year-old Russian defenseman Egor Zamula.
Hogberg, the coach pointed out, made a huge and necessary adjustment after coming over from Sweden.
“It’s a big jump to come from a big rink and a game that didn’t have a lot of contact,” Gordon said. “So for him to do what he did ... he was probably our most reliable guy defensively. And that wasn’t the case at the start of the year. We saw things that he did well. You can see that the physical part of the game and just the spacing of how quickly things happen, he had to make an adjustment.”
Once Foerster returned from an injury that put his availability for this season in doubt, “every game, he got better and proved that he was deserving of being a first-round pick,” Gordon raved.
That Zamula came to recognize his first play was his best play was huge in his development, according to Gordon.
“He defended well in the power play for us and the penalty kill, so he wore a lot of hats for us at a pretty young age, Gordon said, “and again, real solid, as far as defending and playing physical.”
Wisdom, profiled by The Morning Call in March, knows he could be headed back to the Ontario Hockey League in his native Canada next season. That’s where he would have been this year if the league had not shut down its season due to the pandemic.
But with the Phantoms, he proved he belonged. So anything is possible after this season, in which he finished third on the team with 18 points, behind the veterans O’Reilly and Fitzgerald.
“It means a lot [to have played in the AHL],” Wisdom said. “Obviously, the OHL is probably going to start back up next season and I might have to go back down there, unfortunately. But it definitely means a lot that I can take away what I learned and all my experiences from down here, take it back to the OHL and maybe shed some knowledge on the younger guys down there and hopefully come back stronger with good habits and hopefully just do better and improve my game for years to come.”
If, say, Wisdom and Foerster return to junior hockey next season, “the biggest thing,” Gordon said, “is do they go back to junior and play at that level, or do they ramp it up another level from where they left off here and identify that they were probably exposed to a different style of hockey, a different style of preparation?
“And hopefully that when they do go back, if they do go back, they’ll play better, they don’t take a step back and get into their comfort zone of where everybody else is at instead of the comfort zone that they’re at now.”
But it will be up to the players to carry over this year’s success. The organization will tend to start over in terms of evaluation, Gordon cautions, especially with players who have such limited pro experience.
“As far as training camp and all that, it’s a clean slate,” Gordon said, “and you go to training camp, you’re hoping for the best, that you make the Flyers, and if you don’t make the Flyers, you want to leave a favorable impression that will allow you to be in the conversation for the next call-up.
“... You have to build a résumé with the organization as far as what you’re capable of doing and to get that opportunity to be able to play in the NHL.”