The Phantoms are keeping competitive in the early going, partially fueled by the internal roster battles among the developing prospects knocking on the NHL door.
In the past week, Lehigh Valley went 2-1-0-0, bouncing back from a Wednesday shutout by Laval, 3-0, with back-to-back overtime wins over Hartford on Friday and Saturday – each taken by a final of 4-3.
They're 6-3-1 under promoted first-year head coach John Snowden and are hoping for better up in Allentown with names who hope to be Flyers real soon.
Here's a quick check-in…
Bump scare
Alex Bump had himself a Halloween, notching a goal and an assist in Friday's win in Hartford to complete a Phantoms comeback.
The 21-year-old scored late in the second period with Lehigh Valley trailing by two, using a slick move upon receiving a pass to wheel the puck inside, then stepping into a shot that wired right underneath the goalie's glove and in.
That was a beauty#LVvsHFD| #LVPhantoms pic.twitter.com/srHuGWbbpi
— Lehigh Valley Phantoms (@LVPhantoms) November 1, 2025
A Carl Grundström goal tied it in the third to force OT, then in the extra frame, Bump came streaking down the ice with the puck alongside Lane Pederson on the rush to catch Hartford on its heels.
Bump skated into the hashmarks, then flipped the puck to Pederson across the crease and just ahead of him, who tucked in the winner.
Boo! We won!#LVvsHFD| #LVPhantoms pic.twitter.com/5UTjZEmX1K
— Lehigh Valley Phantoms (@LVPhantoms) November 1, 2025
Bump came into training camp with a serious shot at making the Flyers' roster, but ended up getting lost in the preseason shuffle.
He's definitely not out of the picture, though, and games like last Friday's will definitely help boost him back into the NHL conversation eventually.
The in between
Aleksei Kolosov is back with the Flyers while Sam Ersson is on Injured Reserve, who got placed on it with a lower-body injury last Thursday.
Emil Andrae is back, too, while Tyson Foerster also takes a trip on the IR, also with the lower-body injury designation but more clearly stemming from a blocked shot off his skate against Toronto on Saturday.
Kolosov started Sunday's 2-1 loss to Calgary. He looked okay, but a couple of funky bounces beat him on a night where the Flyers couldn't get inside and generate any dangerous offense down the other way.
The Flyers' goaltending plans, when everyone's healthy, is still to have Ersson and Dan Vladar as the NHL duo, while Kolosov and Carson Bjarnason play as much as possible down in the AHL. It's been notable, though, that the Flyers have gone out of their way to highlight Kolosov's more positive attitude about his place within the organization, and that with this past week, there seemed to be no problem calling him back up to the NHL and throwing him into the net to clean up a back-to-back.
The 23-year-old isn't a finished product yet – goalies rarely ever are at that age – but there seems to be more optimism around him now than there was a year ago.
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Andrae is caught in an odd spot among the Flyers' blue line corps. He showed last year that he's good enough to play in the NHL, but hasn't broken that ceiling into a full-time regular. Yet he still remains as one of the immediate skaters on the bubble who gets the call as soon as someone goes down.
The 23-year-old left-handed shot can be a smooth puck-handling defenseman at his best, but is at a seeming organizational disadvantage now with a club that has not so quietly emphasized wanting to get bigger with this past summer's draft. Andrae is listed at 5'9" and 189 pounds, and might be nearing a point where the longer he stays with the Phantoms going forward, the more he's at risk of falling out of the long-term picture.
Maybe he can tap into something, though, with this latest look up with the Flyers.
Time to move on
The Flyers made a minor-league transaction late last week, as well, sending former second-round winger Samu Tuomaala to the Dallas Stars for defensive prospect Christian Kyrou.
Tuomaala, the 46th overall pick from the 2021 draft, was a raw but intriguing forward prospect for a couple of years. His full game very much needed to be put together, but he was a quick skater with an even quicker shot, and that was evident in training camp when he reported in at the end of each summer and in flashes down with the Phantoms across the past two seasons.
It's just that he never put his game fully together. An injury or a slump would set him back, and as a right winger within an organization that's been at an increasing abundance of them both at the NHL level and in the development pipeline, continued struggle was only going to see him lose his spot.
He ran out of time, and the Flyers moved on.
Kyrou, similar to Andrae, is an undersized defenseman at 5'11" and 165 pounds, and hardly has any promises himself coming in. But he is a right-handed shot, and teams are always searching for that on their blue line, and in his second game in with the Phantoms on Saturday in Hartford, he did score the opening goal for his first with Lehigh Valley.
It's a clean slate. You can only see where it goes.
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