Flyers prospects shine in World Junior Summer Showcase openers

The 2025 World Junior Summer Showcase is underway, and the Flyers prospects are stealing the show.

The 2025 World Junior Summer Showcase got underway yesterday afternoon in Minneapolis, marking the beginning of the information gathering and evaluation process for the national team roster makers, ahead of this winter’s highly anticipated World Junior Championship. It’s a full week of action ahead, where many of the top players under age 20 will aim to begin to make the strongest of cases for their places on those future World Junior teams, and it’s a group in which the Flyers find themselves very well represented. With seven of their prospects taking part in the tournament — the most of any organization — there’s no shortage of opportunities to show a bit of flash and make the pipeline look good, and they certainly got off to a hot start towards that aim.

The first game of the afternoon saw the Finns squaring off against the USA White squad, and while the Americans came away from the game with a 5-2 win, Flyers 2024 fourth round pick Heikki Ruohonen stepped up as something of the star of the show throughout. Now, he certainly had a big opportunity to do that through his usage — playing as the Finns’ top line center, as well as on their first power play unit, and as one of their top penalty killers, while also having the benefit of being one of the few Finns already well adjusted to the North American ice — but he made sure to make an impression, seeming to stand out on just about every one of his shifts.

Ruohonen stepped up nicely as a real menace on the forecheck for the Finns, but he also doing a lot to help drive their offense — he had several good scoring chances across all situations, and he got himself on the board, rewarded for his hard work on the entry of this play to set up Finland’s first goal of the tournament.

Of course, the pair of prospects on the American side also showed very nicely in their summer showcase debuts. Penciled in at the start of the game as the team’s fourth line wingers, Jack Murtagh and Shane Vansaghi both stepped up in a big way to give the team a boost from their depth, and got themselves on the scoresheet.

Vansaghi spent a lot of time throughout the game in and around the crease looking for chances, and he managed to capitalize on that positioning and a bit of a scramble in front of the net after a first opportunity from farther out, and bang in a rebound for his first goal of the tournament.

And then Murtagh, who immediately popped as a physical presence out there, with a couple of big hits thrown and battles initiated in the corners, also showed a bit of finesse on the offensive side. He assisted on Ryker Lee’s second goal of the afternoon on what we would call a high-effort play, getting the puck to him on the rush with a spinning area pass while being dragged down to the ice by a defender. As they say, it isn’t always pretty, but it works.

Back on the Finnish side, and not to be overlooked, Max Westergard also made an impression in his debut in this tournament — he didn’t bring the same level of flash, and didn’t come away from the afternoon with any points to his name, but he made a couple of nice subtle plays to support his team’s transition game, and looked quite comfortable as a puck carrier, despite his size.

The second game of the day, though less laden with prospects, still saw Jack Berglund stepping up nicely as the organization’s lone representative.

Berglund came out with some noticeable jump — it seemed to be the case in the drill settings back at Development Camp that Berglund had added a step over the past year, and it was made clear this was true in the game setting yesterday — and held up really well in his role as Sweden’s first line center. He had a couple of nice looks across the game, and capitalized on an especially nice opportunity, driving in towards the net and beating the American goaltender clean to begin a comeback for his team. He’s a player that’s going to be leaned on heavily in this tournament as well as the main tournament when it comes around, and he’s doing well to get comfortable in that role and hit the ground running.

Altogether, it was just about as solid of a start to the Summer Showcase as we could have hoped to see from the prospect group — and this is even before the Canadians have entered the mix. There’s still a lot tournament left ahead, and still a long road to earning the truly coveted spots on the final World Junior rosters, but the Flyers’ representatives are off to an excellent start.