Photo Credit: The Flyers
The draft is now over, and with that come to assessments. Assessments of each player taken, watching more highlights, watching more film, reading over scouting reports on some prospects that one may not have thought of the Flyers taking originally. One has to remember that whatever draft board a person may have, it’s entirely different from the draft board that the Flyers have.
With that being said, it just feels like this draft was different from yours past. It all started on Wednesday night when the Flyers finally drafted the generational talent, the first since Eric Lindros was drafted in 1992, but honestly the most impressive work came on day two of the draft. For once the Flyers drafted speed, skill, and goal scoring. Mainly the speed aspect stood out for me.
Draftees like Alex Ciernik, Denver Barkey, Ryan MacPherson all have high motors, all are very good skaters, coupled with good scoring abilities. Add in Cole Knuble, Mike Knuble’s son, who has improved the skating over the course of the past year. The Flyers honed in on speed and scoring abilities in the second round at the Forward position.
In years past, the Flyers drafted for size, not only at the defensive position, put the forward position, as well. Yes, there are some prospects that were smaller than others in the previous drafts, but that was the overall takeaway size, size, size. 2023 draft class features a generational talent, coupled with speed and scoring abilities at the Ford position, size on the back end, and two agile netminders.
Flahr tidbit on Alex Ciernik- “Alex is a highly skilled kid. Terrific skater.”
Flahr tidbit on Denver Barkey- “Dynamic and offensive junior. High-speed. Lots of energy.”
Flahr tidbit on Ryan MacPherson- “Real good motor. [Rick] Pracey compares him a little bit to Noah Cates.”
Flahr tidbit on Cole Knuble- “Really worked hard at getting stronger this year. Dramatically improved his skating.”
The Flyers honed in on skating in speed on day two of the draft. That’s indifferent, and it makes Flyers fans feel good once again. Speed is the name of the game in the NHL, and finally the Flyers have addressed this issue. Will it pay off instantly, no, no one will really know how this draft class performs until around the 2026-27 season. Were there some reaches by the organization with some of the draft picks? Absolutely, but sometimes that happens with raw players, however, this draft on paper was a very good draft by the orange and black. We will just have to wait and see how this draft really turns out.
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I’m stunned over the draft. Why would you pick another Russian player after we got burned on the Fedetov deal? There was a reason the top 6 passed on Michkov. Too many unknowns. 3 years to wait for this guy is way to long. If he gets seriously injured we are out a draft pick and get nothing. Bad gamble boys. We should have taken Lenard, who I picked at 7, then Perrault at 22. Funny, they were both picked the very next pick after the Flyers passed them up, 8 and 23.
Both players stats are great. Lenard is compared to the Tkachuk Brothers. The arms on that kid were huge! He will be an impact player very quickly. Perrault, pure sniper. His stats say that. These are players we could have had very shortly on the bench and enjoyed their skills in a short period of time not 3 years from now. Plus they would have NHL experience in 3 years that Michkov won’t. Even when he gets here we will have to wait for him to get adjusted to the NHL. How ever long that will be. Those passes on the player we didn’t draft will be realized very quickly because they were drafted by teams in our division, the Caps and Rangers I have a feeling this draft is going to come back and bite us in the butt!!!