As the Flyers\u2019 development camp rolls on, three big names are watching from the sidelines.<\/p>\n
Forwards Jett Luchanko<\/a> and Denver Barkey, and defenseman Oliver Bonk were unable to participate this week. Luchanko is dealing with a groin issue while Bonk and Barkey, whose season didn\u2019t end until June 1 with the Memorial Cup championship, are healing from bumps and bruises and a high-ankle sprain, respectively. Barkey suffered the injury in the Ontario Hockey League final before he returned to help London win the Canadian Hockey League final with a pair of goals against the 2026 draft\u2019s projected No. 1, Gavin McKenna, and Medicine Hat of the Western Hockey League.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard on all three to be nonparticipants.<\/p>\n \u201c[Barkey] always comes to me every morning, \u2018Hey, do you think you can get me out on the ice?\u2019 No, no, you\u2019re done,\u201d director of player development Riley Armstrong said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n Added Bonk: \u201cIt\u2019s hard not being out there with the boys. You love these guys, and they\u2019re all beauties, so you want to be out there with them. It\u2019s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Flyers\u2019 vision becomes clear: Short-term free agency deals for Season 3 of the rebuild under Danny Bri\u00e8re<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n There\u2019s no reason to risk further injury to three guys who could play key roles in the upcoming season. Each player will push for NHL jobs as Bonk and Barkey officially turn pro and Luchanko aims to crack the opening night roster for the second straight year. Luchanko will either be on the Flyers or return to the OHL\u2019s Guelph Storm in the CHL; Bonk and Barkey have the options of the NHL or Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s no wonder they are \u201cantsy\u201d about watching, as Barkey said. They all have big summers coming up.<\/p>\n \u201cContinue to get bigger, stronger,\u201d Barkey said of his summer plans. \u201cIt\u2019s a big jump next year. I\u2019m going to be playing against older men and strong guys. So, continuing to get stronger, faster, and I think the biggest thing is just using my brain and then finding a way to adjust. It\u2019s a different game in pro.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed. Luchanko got a taste of the pros with his four NHL games at the start of the season and a 16-game stint with the Phantoms, which included seven playoff games, at the end. He didn\u2019t score in the AHL, but the 18-year-old (who turns 19 in late August) had nine assists, including two in the first-round series clincher against Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton in the playoffs.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, there\u2019s never a time where I can be satisfied with where I\u2019m at,\u201d said Luchanko, adding his focus is on just working hard and seeing what happens in September. \u201cI think there\u2019s always improvements to be made, and especially just all around you can only just get better at everything, individually, every little thing, so there\u2019s still lots to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n Bonk, 20, knows the shift to the pros won\u2019t be easy too, and that some will question his drop in production from 24 goals and 67 points in 60 regular-season games in 2023-24 to last season\u2019s 11 goals and 40 points in 52 games \u2014 \u201cI just felt like this year, I wasn\u2019t getting too many bounces,\u201d he said \u2014 but he knows he did play some of his best hockey on the road to the Memorial Cup. He chipped in 14 points in 17 playoff games after London got some retribution from losing in the 2024 final. He is fully focused on one thing come the fall.<\/p>\n \u201cGoing [in] with the expectation that you\u2019re going to make the team,\u201d he said about his plans for Flyers training camp. \u201cYou can\u2019t be aiming that you\u2019re going to go to the A, because then you will be going to the A no matter [what]. If you already set that bar, I don\u2019t want to say low, but lower than it should be, you\u2019re going to end up there. \u2026 And some people will say it\u2019s not really realistic, but I think it is, and you\u2019ve got to aim high.\u201d<\/p>\n His buddy Barkey, who was also the captain in London, had 25 goals and 82 points in 50 regular-season games before adding another nine goals and 20 points in 11 postseason games. The 20-year-old is focused on building up his game at the pro level and proving to Hockey Canada \u2014 again \u2014 that it made a big mistake by not taking him for World Juniors.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no third chance now at that team,\u201d said Barkey, who was among the last cuts for the second straight year and has aged out. \u201cIt\u2019s just adversity. There\u2019s ups and downs through [your] hockey career, and, yeah, obviously it was tough again. <\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Shane Vansaghi already leaving his mark on Flyers development camp \u2014 and the staff<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n \u201cBut just continuing to use people that don\u2019t believe in me, and they kind of doubt me, just use it as fuel to my fire and motivation every day. And I kind of keep that in the back of my head, in the gym lifting weights, it helps me maybe push a bit heavier weights, and motivates me.\u201d<\/p>\n Breakaways<\/p>\n The Flyers held a three-on-three mini-tournament on the newly branded \u201867 Arena on Saturday afternoon. The fast-paced action saw several high-flying goals, big-time stops from the camp invitees in net, and a comeback victory in the championship game by Team LeClair\/Stewart. Jack Murtagh, who was selected by the Flyers in the second round a week ago, scored two goals in the final round, including the game-winner with around 50 seconds left in the 10-minute running-time game. \u2026 They may all be Flyers, but there were several monster hits \u2014 notably Noah Powell crushing Alex Bump clean in open ice and Shane Vansaghi nailing camp invitee Tim Lovell in the corner with the forearm \u2014 and there were some slashes, and some general unhappiness, especially between Hunter McDonald and Spencer Gill. \u2026 The two defensemen will be on opposite sides on Sunday during the finale of development camp, a five-on-five scrimmage that pits Team Bri\u00e8re against Team Jones. Originally scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees, it has been moved up to 4 p.m. Porter Martone, the Flyers\u2019 top pick in the 2025 NHL draft, highlights the general manager\u2019s team while Bump skates for Keith Jones<\/a>\u2019 squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Flyers\u2019 development camp rolls on, three big names are watching from the sidelines. Forwards Jett Luchanko…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[33689,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-42972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-flyers-development-camp-jett-luchanko-denver-barkey-oliver-bonk","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114805483084352478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}