The Philadelphia Flyers are a team on the rise. General manager Danny Briere is working to re-shape the franchise into a Stanley Cup contender. There’s no shortcut to success at the NHL level, so Briere and company are starting at the ground level. The Lehigh Valley Phantoms figure to be a large part of the rebuild coming off of an impressive playoff stint in 2024. When the puck drops in the fall, they’ll be entrusted with some key players to develop to further that goal.
Rally in the Valley
The Phantoms had one of the best stories of the playoffs, stunning the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Briere and the rest of the Flyers staff attended every game of the playoff run. After the upset, the Phantoms played a very close series with the league-leading Hershey Bears. The team nearly forced a decisive fifth game but fell just short to show the future is bright in the organization.
Briere rewarded head coach Ian Laperriere with a two-year extension after the season. The two go way back to their playing days with trust between them. Both players were on the last Flyers squad to make the Stanley Cup Final in 2010, and it’ll take a team effort once more in this rebuild. His experience as a player makes his value as a development coach essential to that goal.
“He had to fight for everything in his career,” Briere said about the extension. “He can walk into a room as a coach and look at a player and say, ‘that next shot, you better stop it with your face’. He’s done it before. Not a lot of people can do that. He gets a lot of respect from his players as a guy who did everything to be the best he can be.”
New Phantoms
Lehigh Valley is set to have a few new faces in the lineup. Incoming rookies Massimo Rizzo, Oscar Eklind, and Rodrigo Abols will look to take their next steps. Rizzo, originally drafted by Carolina, was acquired in a summer trade nearly a year ago. Abols is a whopping 6’4 center from Latvia with some excellent upside. Eklind is a journeyman forward from Sweden taking his talents to the pros for the first time.
Even the Phantoms’ muscle will be homegrown with the team signing Sawyer Boulton to an AHL contract. Boulton, the son of former NHL forward Eric Boulton, picked up his father’s physical style of game. His efforts will be important in a competitive Atlantic Division and against Lehigh Valley’s in-state rivals. The Battle of Pennsylvania will be as ferocious as ever, and the Phantoms will need success to make the playoffs.
Laperriere will further develop prospects like Samu Tuomaala, who is coming off of an All-Star appearance in his rookie season. Other prospects like Jon-Randall Avon and Elliot Desnoyers are in the mix to become Flyers. Still others, like Ronnie Attard and Adam Ginning, will be important future players going forward.
Welcome to the Future
The Phantoms will be important in the future, as well. The Flyers recently signed their first-round draft pick Jett Luchanko to an entry-level contract. Philadelphia has 12 picks in the 2025 draft, including a whopping six in the first two rounds. Those players will be the face of the completed rebuild, and the majority of them will start their careers in Allentown. The task for Laperriere and company will be to build a winning culture ahead of those arrivals.
Success at the AHL often leads to the NHL. When the Phantoms captured the Calder Cup in 2005, their lineup feature a boatload of future NHLers in the making. Future captain Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Patrick Sharp, Joni Pitkanen, and Antero Niittymaki headlined the group. They’d all go on to have successful NHL careers, and for this rebuild to be successful, the Phantoms will need success once again.
