Nikita Grebenkin impresses in Phantoms debut

The Flyers’ newest prospect Nikita Grebenkin made his Phantoms debut on Sunday, and made an immediate positive impact and impression.

The reinforcements have finally arrived for the Phantoms.

This weekend saw recently acquired Givani Smith make his Phantoms debut on Friday, and, after a longer wait for his visa to come through, new prospect Nikita Grebenkin make his debut in Sunday’s matchup against the Penguins. It was a tough game for the team in some ways — despite bringing a more complete effort than they did in the first game of the week, they still fell short of the win in the end, losing by a 5-3 score — but Grebenkin showed well in his first outing with the team.

It was something of a trial by fire for him, as he was dropped in with no practice time into top-line minutes with Zayde Wisdom and Jacob Gaucher, as well as into a spot playing the left half-wall on their top power play unit — certainly a big role to step into, but Grebenkin took the challenge in stride.

Grebenkin’s playing pace was good, and he was skating well with two teams that had a bit of rest after being off on Saturday. He was forechecking well, being disruptive of the Penguins’ chances, throwing the body around (even going a little too far on that one, earning himself a roughing minor, but we don’t hate the energy there), but most importantly, his offense was popping right from the jump. Grebenkin had two shots make it on goal, and at least as many additional attempts, and he was quickly able to break through on one of them, scoring the Phantoms’ third goal of the game (and only one on the power play).

It feels a bit informative that Grebenkin found more success getting down into the netfront area than he did passing from the left circle, but the resulting goal was an impressive and impactful one, all the same. As head coach Ian Laperriere said after the game, “our special teams, we need to work on that,” but the power play looked better in this game, and “with [Grebenkin] coming into our lineup, is going to help for sure.”

The showing wasn’t perfect for him, of course, as he definitely had a couple of moments where it looked like he had the right idea on a play he was trying to make, but he was just a little bit out of synch with his linemates. But this is understandable for his first time skating with the team in, and as Laperriere said, he’s not concerned about how he’ll continue to acclimate. But to immediate get into the scoring mix was a huge first step in the right direction (something Smith was also able to do). “It’s great for them, great for the team, you know,” Laperriere added. “There’s no better way to get to a new team than by producing and helping your team get into the game. I’m impressed by both of those guys.”