The Philadelphia Flyers entered last week’s NHL Draft with two first-round picks and rumors swirling of a potential trade. They came away from the first round with just one prospect that nobody had ranked in the top 15 and a whole lot of questions.
After Daniel Briere and Keith Jones hit a home run in the 2023 NHL Draft with Matvei Michkov falling to No. 7 and Oliver Bonk at No. 22, Flyers fans’ trust in the front office is now wavering a bit.
It all looked like it was falling the Flyers’ way. The Anaheim Ducks reached for Beckett Sennecke at third overall, and after Carter Yakemchuk and Berkly Catton were selected seventh and eighth, you could do the math that the Flyers would have a crack at one of the top names in the draft.
The Flyers had their choice of a top-tier defenseman in Zeev Buium or one of the best centers in the draft in Konsta Helenius. Instead, they traded down one spot with the Minnesota Wild, who sprinted to the podium to select one of the best defensemen in the draft. However, the Flyers were able to add a third-round selection while also getting one of the top centers on the board.
But it wasn’t the center that many expected.
Helenius, a two-way center who has already played professionally in Finland, remained on the board as the Flyers opted to select Jett Luchanko. Luchanko wasn’t as highly ranked as Buium or Helenius — or even a few other players — but the Flyers keyed in on the speedy youngster with a long runway.
In the moment, many were surprised, shocked, and perhaps disappointed in the pick. The board fell the Flyers’ way to give them a chance to shore up their defensive cupboard with one of the best defensemen in the draft or a center ranked in the top 12. Luchanko didn’t have the hype that Buium or Helenius had, but perhaps there was a reason for that.
Luchanko just barely made the cutoff for this year’s draft. His August 21, 2006 birthdate is less than a month before the September 15 cutoff. That’s to say that Luchanko was one of the youngest players in this year’s class, especially so in the first round.
The Flyers understood that Luchanko might take a year or two longer than others — namely Helenius — to develop. But while Helenius was playing against men in Liiga, Luchanko was also punching above his weight.
The 13th overall selection was just 17 during his second OHL season with the Guelph Storm, a team that lost its top center to the Bruins when Boston elected to keep Matthew Poitras in the NHL. Luchanko led the Storm with 74 points (20 goals, 54 assists) while playing in all 68 games.
Overall, Luchanko’s 74 points were the 30th-most in the OHL. He was right behind Michael Misa (75 points in 67 games), a forward expected to be a top pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, and ahead of Beckett Sennecke (68 points in 63 games), who the Ducks reached all the way to select at third overall this year.
It’s worth mentioning that Misa’s Saginaw Spirit finished first in their division and went on to win the Memorial Cup as hosts. That type of winning environment and, more importantly, skilled teammates could elevate Luchanko’s game in a similar way.
But back to Luchanko. While the Flyers reached a bit on the youngster, he was ranked as highly as 18th by ISS Hockey and Craig Button, and 19th by Bob McKenzie. There also weren’t too many centers in the top half of this first round with five centers going off the board after Helenius — all in the 18 to 25 range.
So the Flyers took a chance and got their guy. It may end up looking like the wrong decision depending on how Helenius fares in Buffalo, and that’s fine. Aren’t we sick of the Flyers doing the “safe” thing anyway? Luchanko appears to be a player with a top-six ceiling (potentially top line?) and his motor gives him a bottom-six floor, likely on a third line. He has already shown the intangibles needed to compete at the NHL level and his offensive game should only grow as he does. It may take a few years longer, but the Flyers have been adamant about the rebuild timeline and this only confirms that.
As does their decision to trade their other first-round pick at 32nd overall to the Oilers in exchange for Edmonton’s first-round pick (top-12 protected) in next year’s draft. It’s highly unlikely that the Oilers miss the playoffs next year, and if they do they should still be in the 13th to 16th range in the lottery.
That gives the Flyers three first-round picks — their own, Colorado’s (top-10 protected), and Edmonton’s (top-12 protected) — in what is expected to be a deep 2025 NHL Draft. Oh yeah, the Flyers also have three second-round picks, and what should be high second-round picks at that with Anaheim and Columbus expected to be in the basement again next season.
The Flyers now have some flexibility heading into next season and next year’s draft. They could simply use all three picks to add a trio of prospects to the pipeline. They could use them as assets to trade for a much-needed first-line center. They could even package the Avalanche and Oilers picks to trade up for another top-15 selection — assuming the Flyers miss the playoffs.
We’ve seen the first wave of Tyson Foerster, Bobby Brink, Jamie Drysdale, and Cam York make an NHL impact already and that should continue in 2024-25. They’ll be joined by Michkov this year before the London Knights duo of Oliver Bonk and Denver Barkey, along with others, make their way through the system in the coming years. And if all goes well, Luchanko and next year’s draftees will be coming up behind them not too long thereafter.
This is all to say that the Flyers’ rebuild is still going according to plan. Sure, Matvei Michkov coming to the NHL two years earlier than expected may provide some excitement, but that doesn’t mean that the Flyers will be spinning their tires in the mud or unnecessarily signing free agents to exorbitant contracts.
At the same time, though, this isn’t to say that Luchanko was necessarily the right selection — that’s still to be determined with hindsight. Taking Buium or Helenius, or even trading up for Lindstrom or Demidov, would have us in a different timeline with perhaps a better result.
That’s the fun in all of this. We can speculate and debate and have “our guys” heading into the draft, but do any of us really know? After all, sports are supposed to be fun, right?
