BSH prospect report: Plugging along
Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
The Phantoms are good now, thx. Another week, another prospect report, and this week’s quieter on the news front. We’ve got one bit of transaction news, and one “injury” update. First up, as you probably know by now because he played last night, Egor Zamula’s back up with the Flyers after his short stint with the Phantoms. He was brought back up initially mostly with the intention of getting him in for some more practices with the NHL squad, but with Tony DeAngelo out with injury, his services were needed. That’s fun.
Also, Samuel Ersson missed last weekend’s slate of Phantoms games, but before you get too panicky, worrying he’s also been felled by the organizational injury curse, there’s no need. He was out with an illness, but it looks like he’s going to be good to go to at least dress for tonight’s game. Crisis averted.
What’s up with the Phantoms?
Speaking of that slate of Phantoms games on the weekend, it was a pretty successful one, even without Ersson. It was a quieter week for the Phantoms, relative to last weekend, as they had just two games on deck. They kicked things off with a hard fought matchup against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, which ended in a shootout loss for the Phantoms, but they followed that up with a stellar effort on Saturday, beating the Rochester Americans by a score of 5-1.
After this, though, they’re still sitting at sixth in their divisional standings (but with at least one game in hand over each of the teams ahead of them, if that’s any consolation). So they’ve got a way to climb back up in the standings to get comfortably into the playoff picture, but they’ve been steadily chipping away at it on this nice little run, picking up wins in six of their last eight games, and points in seven.
There were a number of good weekends had among the individual players, but there wasn’t one better than Olle Lycksell’s. He got back into the lineup on Friday after missing a couple of games with an injury, and boy oh boy was he back with a vengeance. He started off the weekend with just one assist on Friday, but he was buzzing already, chipping in a team-high seven individual shots on goal. He was able to carry that momentum well in Saturday’s game, where he picked up a goal of his own and a further three assists (for those keeping track at home, this was four of the Phantoms’ five goals that Lycksell factored into). In a way, it feels like it’s a bit of a shame that he’s picking up so much steam as the Flyers are finally getting marginally healthier, but if he keeps this up, he may well force a call-up on pure merit alone.
Elsewhere on the scoring front, we had big weekends from both Tyson Foerster and Elliot Desnoyers, who both put up two goals each (Foerster also chipped in a whopping ten shots on goal on the weekend). Let’s go to the highlight reel.
Tyson Foerster now has five goals on the season, second on the @LVPhantoms only to Elliot Desnoyers (6). Nice net front presence throughout the first period, and it's Foerster who gets rewarded. pic.twitter.com/anmq1Hx7oP— Matt Trust (@Matt_Trust) November 27, 2022
Elliot Desnoyers. 5-1 Phantoms. Shots are 37-8 Lehigh Valley. This would be points in seven of their last eight games, should this result hold. All-in-all, an outstanding month of November with one game left in the month after today. pic.twitter.com/nfuZhAAcln— Matt Trust (@Matt_Trust) November 27, 2022
On the back end, we also saw Cam York contributing nicely, as he was able to contribute a today two assist and three shots on goal, while still bringing more of his usual steadiness in the puck moving department, bringing a pretty complete, even if not absolutely eye popping, effort.
And before we go, since we mentioned him already, we’ll check in with Zamula again. It was, overall, a quiet pair of games as he worked to get settled back in with the team, but he did a fine job ob of. He didn’t come out of the weekend with any points, but he did chip in four shots on goal, and was steady enough on the defensive side. We can live with that!
The prospect world tour
First up on our little globe trot, we’re off to Sweden, where Emil Andrae is continuing to put together a very solid season for himself. In his four games over the last week, he put up three assists and 10 shots on goal, as after a bit of a cool stretch, he’s back to getting himself on the scoresheet again. This brings him up to a tidy 10 points in his first 20 games of the season, and while this is a ways off his scoring pace from last season (when he was averaging .8 points per game), this isn’t to suggest that he’s playing worse overall. He’s still been a key contributor for his HV71 squad, leaned on heavily, and he’s finding ways to be productive, they just aren’t being captured in the box score.
And in very recent news, Cutter Gauthier had himself a very good game just last night, as he scored a power play goal and a regular old assist in Boston College’s win over Brown. He’s cooking, folks!
And finally, it was a very good weekend for the Flyers prospects up in Peterborough. J.R. Avon chipped in a goal and three assists, as well as 11 shots on goal, over their three games played, and the offense just keeps coming in droves for him. Brian Zanetti also got himself a goal on the weekend, bringing him up to two on the season.
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