Photo Courtesy Of Harvard Athletics
A notable prospect from the 2019 NHL draft has informed the NHL and the Anaheim Ducks that he has decided to become an unrestricted free agent after the season. Defenseman Henry Thrun was drafted by the Ducks in the fourth round, 101st overall in 2019.
The 21 year-old native of Southborough, Massachusetts was an impactful player for the US National Team development program before he was drafted to the NHL. In two seasons with the program, Thrun notched 15 goals, 61 assists for 76 points in 124 games played. He also played
a season for the Dubuque Fighting Saints of the USHL, scoring eight goals, 14 assists for 22 points in 24 games. In the same year he also won a gold medal at the 2021 World Juniors, where he played seven games for team USA, notching an assist. Thrun ended up committing to
Harvard University and over the course of three seasons with the University, he has posted 77 points in 90 games, serving as a Captain this year.
During his time with Harvard, he has made
second and third All-Star teams in the NCAA East. Thrun and his team also became champions of the NCAA ECAC last season. This year he is serving as Captain of Harvard and playing alongside notable NHL prospects. There has been a lot of history with players committed to Harvard opting free agency after their
college years. Some noteworthy names who have done so are Adam Fox, John Marino, Jimmy Vesey, and Alex Kerfoot.
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The Flyers have a lot of young players and prospects in the system. Obviously in the off-season they need to work on getting elite talent and veteran presence both offensively and defensively, but adding a solid left-handed defensive prospect could also be a good move. The Flyers are starting to lack defensive talent in their prospect pools as players are starting to graduate from prospect status, like Cam York for example. A cool reason to add Thrun to the orange and black is he and York played in the USNTDP program together as well as the world juniors.
Overall Thrun is a well-rounded defenseman, but in his past few seasons at Harvard, he has shown to provide a shutdown role defensively, which is a big need for the Flyers. His strong skating abilities make him a good puck-moving defenseman on the rush and entering the
offensive zone. There will be lots of interest in Thrun this Summer. He may be a hard get, but a signing like him could definitely improve the Flyers for the future on the backend.
Why come to Philly? He’s a Boston native. Who will Philly dump to make room for another left handed defenseman with Zamula coming up sooner or later.