The offseason is officially here but the “Flyers Prospects Mailbag” is not slowing down yet. With the draft lottery now behind us, there is plenty to talk about.
Let’s get right to it, shall we?
Now, this is a fun question! Brandon, I’m making the assumption you want a “five players on the ice” type deal. I will provide you with a center, two wingers, two defensemen, and one goalie. Carter Hart and Philippe Myers are excluded from this list because they are both full-time NHL players in my book.
My center is Morgan Frost. Not only is he a legitimate playmaking center, but he’s also the Flyers top-ranked prospect. My two wingers have to be Joel Farabee and Isaac Ratcliffe. Farabee is the second-best forward in the prospect pool while slots in at three. Both prospects can do some serious damage on offense. Just thinking about a Ratcliffe-Frost-Farabee line is getting me all sorts of excited.
I went very offensive-minded in my two defensemen. By now, everyone knows how high I am on Wyatte Wylie. I just really love this kid’s game and I think that he could turn into a draft-steal down the road. With Wylie, I’d also put Yegor Zamula on my all-star team. The kid is 6-foot-3 with some serious offensive fire power, enough said.
My goalie pick was slightly more challenging than my other selections. I am going to go with Kirill Ustimenko. There is something about this young goaltender that just has me hooked. He’s currently behind Felix Sandstrom in my personal rankings but it’s just because Sandstrom older and is further along in his development. Eventually, I believe Ustimenko will pass Sandstrom as the top netminder in the farm system.
Deep down you enjoy suffering.
Felix Sandstrom will be the starter in Lehigh Valley next season. If everything goes as planned, Kirill Ustimenko will be the primary back up netminder. They will give Alex Lyon some games but he will be placed on the backburner for the most part. The reason I go with Sandstrom is that he is further along in his development and has the best chance of serving as Carter Hart’s back up the quickest.
Personally, I do not think so. Wade Allison suffered through a lot this season. I believe that it will be good for him to go through a senior year at Western Michigan healthy. He can get back to the form he was in during his sophomore year. On the surface, it looks a bit concerning. However, I do not think it lessens his chance of signing his ELC eventually.
Unfortunately, the draft lottery did go in a favorable way for the Flyers. Instead of picking tenth, Philadelphia will have the 11th-overall selection in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. I’m going to spending a lot of time over the next few months going into detail about possible choices for the Flyers, however, I will give you a brief summary now.
There is still a lot of promising talent to be had at the 11th pick. According to HockeyProspect.com, my preferred scouting source, the 11th-best prospect available currently is defenseman Moritz Seider from Adler Mannheim of the DEL. There’s a lot to like with this young player and could be a solid choice. Of course, there will be other good prospects available, especially if other teams choose to address a need such as defense or goalie. If more than one blueliner gets taken in the top ten, or a team decides to grab Spencer Knight, the Flyers could wind up with a very good forward prospect. Some names to keep tabs on if this happens are Kirby Dach, Dylan Cozens, Matthew Boldy, and Trevor Zegras. Again, we will be going into a lot more detail about all of this in the future.
Thank you so much to all of the people who provided questions for Flyers Prospects Mailbag! If you missed out this week, keep an eye on Twitter for my next request for your prospect questions.
Mandatory Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports
