Flyers prospect progression: How close are Bonk, Barkey, Martone, others to the NHL?

Parts of the kind of team the Philadelphia Flyers want to have are starting to take hold.

Matvei Michkov is already here and has all the makings of a future star in the NHL, Tyson Foerster (though injured right now) showed that he can be a steady two-way piece for years to come, and not too far down below, key prospects like Oliver Bonk, Denver Barkey, Alex Bump, Jett Luchanko, and now Porter Martone are pushing their ways up.

"The exciting part for me is all the young guys that have taken a step in the last couple of years, and then all of a sudden, the guys that we started drafting a couple of years ago are starting to turn pro," general manager Danny Brière said back after last season ended in April. "You want that internal competitiveness."

And for that prospect pipeline to keep moving along.

The past few drafts now for the Flyers have been crucial ones to their long-term plan, and below is a look at where all those respective draft classes are when it comes to how close each of their prospects are to making an NHL impact…

2022

• Alex Bump joined the Lehigh Valley Phantoms for their playoff run straight off a National Championship with Western Michigan. He realized quickly that he needed to get stronger over the summer to play at the next level, but his overall stock has risen tremendously in the past couple of years, and because of the uncertainty of Tyson Foerster's injury, the 21-year-old has a real shot to make the Flyers out of camp.

A strong showing in the 5-on-5 scrimmage back at development camp, where he looked a clear step above anyone else on the ice, probably helped his case, too.

• Devin Kaplan signed his entry-level contract late into last season to get an NHL game in, and could be on the roster bubble in training camp, but the AHL seems the stronger likelihood for him to start next season.

• Hunter McDonald is a big defenseman who the Flyers have been openly high on in the past couple of years. He might prove NHL-ready at some point next season, but that the Flyers brought in some cost-effective blueline help in free agency with Noah Juulsen and Dennis Gilbert suggests he might not be ready quite yet.

• Cutter Gauthier…yeah…

2023

• Matvei Michkov is already here, and he just led the Flyers and the rookie class in scoring, so the focus from here is on how good he can really be.

• Oliver Bonk and Denver Barkey made another trip to the Memorial Cup with London in juniors and won it this time. Now that they're both 20, they're turning pro and keeping what has so far looked like a promising Flyers draft class moving along.

• Cole Knuble is helping in that regard, too. He settled into his game as last year went on at Notre Dame, and split through the middle of the ice well during the Flyers' dev camp scrimmage. He's going back to play for the Fighting Irish this coming season, and it might be a big year ahead of him.

• In net, Carson Bjarnason is moving up to the AHL for this coming season – has his Flyers mask, too – and Yegor Zavragin over in Russia has constantly posted dominant numbers.

The Flyers' current goaltending situation is cloudy. They're trying to see if either of Dan Vladar, or Sam Ersson, or a tandem of both stick in the short term.

For the long term, though, Bjarnason and Zavragin are lining up as the organization's two big hopefuls in net.

2024

• Jett Luchanko is in a bit of an odd spot for his development. He made the Flyers out of camp last year, but got returned to Guelph in juniors before they had to keep him as a full-time NHLer. He was allowed to join the Phantoms for their playoff run at the end of the season because Guelph wasn't in them in the OHL, but until he's 20 (Luchanko is still only 18), he can't stick with the Phantoms full-time to get pro minutes in the AHL.

So here Luchanko is with a taste of the pro game, but no direct way to follow up on that unless he makes the Flyers again and stays with them this time.

He might not be fully ready for that, though, yet he doesn't really have much to gain from another year in juniors.

To be clear, another year for Luchanko in juniors wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would feel like a holding pattern because of Canadian junior prospect rules that the new NHL CBA is finally trying to re-adjust.

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• Brière, in speaking about the Flyers' developing center depth back at the draft, specifically mentioned the progress of Jack Berglund and Heikki Ruohonen.

Berglund, 19, will be up in the SHL (Sweden's top pro league) from the start this season. Ruohonen, also 19, is staying in North America after a year in the USHL, and will be moving up to the college game at Harvard. Both situations present big next steps for the two center prospects.

• Noah Powell took a step back and joined the Oshawa Generals in Canadian juniors last season after an unhappy freshman year at Ohio State. The 20-year-old decided to give the college game another try this coming season, and will be skating with Arizona State to do so.

Powell is a winger who skates hard and can hit even harder, and he'll be looking to use his new start at Arizona State as a means to get back on track.

2025

• The statuses for all of the Flyers' 2025 draft prospects, having only just been selected late last month, are pretty clear-cut, save for one.

The Canadian junior prospects are going back to their respective leagues for their plus-one year. The American prospects are either going to, or returning to, college. Max Westergard, as an overseas skater, will continue to climb through Sweden's ranks.

The only real question mark is where sixth overall pick Porter Martone will go next.

Martone said his goal is to make the Flyers out of training camp a couple of weeks ago, but that was in response to a question of whether he thought about returning to Brampton or making a move into the NCAA.

Following the dev camp scrimmage, assistant GM Brent Flahr said that Martone did have offers and that while they would want him to make the Flyers right away, the next few weeks would be about sitting down, talking, and deciding what's best for him in the long haul.

So it's a wait to see whether Martone goes back to juniors, goes to college, or just makes the Flyers outright.

That Gavin McKenna decision to play for Penn State, though, did just massively shift how the typical amateur hockey routes work.

Options are a lot more open now.

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