Flyers odds and ends: The Phantoms have a coach, the NHL has a new CBA, and college hockey has its superstar

The Phantoms have their next head coach.

John Snowden is being promoted up from assistant coach over in Lehigh Valley to run the whole AHL bench, The Philadelphia Inquirer's Jackie Spiegel confirmed.

Snowden was on the ice during Flyers development camp in Voorhees last week, directing the organization's prospects through various drills.

He arrived to the Phantoms in the summer of 2023, after a previous two-year AHL stint as an assistant coach for the Toronto Marlies, and he had a run in the ECHL that saw him guide the Newfoundland Growlers to a Kelly Cup championship in 2019 as their head coach before that.

Snowden also crossed paths with Riley Armstrong, the Flyers' current director of player development, along the way as both were working through the ECHL coaching ranks.

"Having him here and his mind for development, which is a big part of what we're going to do with the Phantoms, it helps me out a ton," Armstrong said during development camp last Wednesday. "And then on the other side, I help him out a ton because we think the game the same way."

And with several notable Flyers prospects already with the Phantoms – like Alex Bump, Hunter McDonald, and Carson Bjarnason – and more expected to be on the way – Oliver Bonk, Denver Barkey, and maybe Jett Luchanko toward the end of next season if he goes back to juniors – the emphasis on development appeared key.

Continuity, too, as Snowden will be taking over directly for Ian Laperrière, who moved into an advisory role for the Flyers back in May.

Terrence Wallin, who has served as head coach for the ECHL's Maine Mariners since 2022, will also be joining the Phantoms as one of Snowden's assistant coaches, again per Spiegel at The Inquirer.

Straight to the point

There won't be any sweating over the possibility of a lockout again.

The NHL and the NHL Players' Association have ratified a four-year collective bargaining agreement that will last through the 2029-30 season, both parties announced on Tuesday.

The league and the NHLPA said that the new CBA's Memorandum of Understanding will be posted publicly at a later date, but Greg Wyshynski and Emily Kaplan over at ESPN were able to get a glimpse into the changes that will be on the way soon.

You can read their full report HERE, but as it pertains to Flyers fans, here were the standouts:

• Max contracts will be cut down from their current eight-year limit. A re-signing player can be offered seven years, while a free agent will only be able to get a total of six.
• The minimum for NHL salaries will increase.
• The regular season will bump up to 84 games and shorten the preseason.
• Draft rights will be standardized to expire when a player turns 22 years old.
• Olympic participation for NHL players is cleared to run through 2030.

There are other interesting bits, like the cleanup of a long-term injured reserve loophole where stashed salaries didn't count in the playoffs (they will now), but unless the Flyers make it and Ryan Ellis can suddenly skate again, they more than likely won't have to worry about that.

That one's really for the Edmonton Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights, who each had key and expensive players who were out long-term conveniently ready to play again once it was playoff time.

Big picture, though, no lockout threat anywhere on the horizon for the NHL, which is a pretty major victory compared to 2012 and all of 2004-05.

A development gamechanger

Gavin McKenna, the consensus. No. 1 pick for next year's NHL Draft, announced his commitment to play college hockey at Penn State for this coming season.

The 17-year-old left wing prospect has spent the past two seasons with the Medicine Hat Tigers in the junior Western Hockey League, where he put up a staggering 41 goals and 129 points through 56 games for the 2023-24 campaign.

But instead of staying on the Canadian Junior track approaching his 2026 draft eligibility, McKenna is instead leaving to face older, and tougher, competition in the NCAA, which also came with a pretty hefty NIL money offer from Penn State, per ESPN's Emily Kaplan.

17-year-old hockey phenom Gavin McKenna is heading to Penn State to continue his career ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/qrxxfILu9P

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) July 8, 2025

McKenna's commitment to Penn State marks a huge victory for the NCAA and college hockey at large, which now has a clear-cut superstar, even if only for a year, and signals a massive shift in the amateur hockey landscape.

Before, draft prospects would usually stay in their already set lane up until their name gets called in the summer. Canadian Junior prospects would stay in their league, college players would run through their scholarships, and overseas skaters and goalies would follow their respective development pipelines back in their home country.

There have been unique cases, like how Auston Matthews played professionally in Switzerland before the Toronto Maple Leafs took him first overall in 2016, but those were exceptions, not the rule.

Now, though? Colleges, mainly the football ones, have some serious cash to throw around thanks to NIL, and that drastically changes the options available to the on-the-rise names in the sport.

McKenna is the latest, and biggest example, but keep an eye out for Porter Martone.

The Flyers' sixth overall pick in the draft late last month said during development camp that his goal is to crack the team's opening night roster, but he said that in response to a question about whether he considered returning to Brampton in juniors for this coming season or making the jump over to college.

Martone could make the team out of camp, but the likelihood is that he'll need more development time, and to that end, here's what Flyers assistant general manager Brent Flahr said at the end of dev camp on Sunday about that looming decision (as published on Tuesday):

"Martone obviously got all kinds of offers. He wants to play in the NHL, and that's a discussion we'll have to have with his agent. As much as we want him to play, we just gotta make sure we do what's best for him.

"We'll figure that out here in the coming weeks and see what he wants to do, his people, his family, and go from there."

The game is changing, and fast.

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