Since we reintroduced our annual Top 25 Under 25 series earlier this week, we’ve been working our way through a bit of housekeeping related to the series, and we’re closing out the week here with the last of that. Something that’s become readily apparent through the curation of this list is the true wealth of talent that the Flyers have up and down their prospect pool — so much that it made whittling our lists down to just 25 worthy players a truly difficult task. So, in the interest of spreading out the love just a little bit more, before we move into the bulk of the main list next week, we’ll give a nod to a few of the players who came close to cracking it, but just came up a little short.
Karsen Dorwart, C
Signed by the Flyers at the end of last season, after he wrapped up a very successful third season at Michigan State (which saw him put up a tidy 31 points over 35 games played), he got in for five games at the end of the NHL season, playing down centering their fourth line. And while Dorwart remains in the conversation to earn that spot with the big club out of training camp, he still remains something of an unknown within the rest of the prospect pool. College free agent signings don’t have the same shiny new toy luster and many of the recent draft picks, and combined with the lingering uncertainty of what he is as a player and the level he’s best suited at, it’s a recipe for slipping down these rankings (but there’s certainly room for upward movement in our next installment, if he impresses in these longer looks at him).
Matthew Gard, C
Speaking of that shiny new toy syndrome, Gard is a player that one might have expected would see a bump in his ranking because of it (and, in fairness, did see it in some of our individual rankings), but he didn’t get it to the same degree as some of the other players drafted near him this time around. And it does make some sense — there’s a lot of value in the overall steadiness and projectability of his game, but he also didn’t pop quite as much in development camp, nor was he present at the World Junior Summer Showcase like players like Jack Murtagh and Shane Vansaghi, so that momentum allowed them to create a bit of separation on a player like Gard. A good draft+1 season, though, will surely go a long way in building his stock back up again. Maybe we’ll see him fare a little better next time around.
Alex Ciernik
On the flip side, we have Ciernik, who dropped off of our list after our last installment (where he ranked 20th). But this, in truth, doesn’t really have anything to do with Ciernik himself, necessarily. That is, he’s at a good place with his game and in his development — he was able to stay healthy for the most part, and got acclimated nicely to the Allsvenskan, and is now poised to take a step up in competition, as he moves over to play in Liiga this coming season — and even though it’s been a bit of a wildly up and down path so far, he’s getting things nicely back on track. This drop-off in ranking is just a product of having such a large pool of talented prospects to choose from, and such a tight mix as we get down into the bottoms of the rankings. So it goes.
Heikki Ruohonen, C
It’s another year of Ruohonen coming close to cracking our main ranking, but not quite getting there. To his credit, though, he’s doing well to build his game up, particularly in the biggest moments. That is, he had solid enough season in the USHL (albeit in a league which hasn’t been as competitive as in years past), but he really stepped up in his time spent with the Finnish national team, first at last year’s World Junior Championship, and more recently in his return to their Summer Showcase. He’s primed for a big season ahead, as he makes the jump to the NCAA level in the fall with a year of adjustment to the North American game already under his belt and also looks to get a major role on Finland’s World Junior team once again, leaving lots of room for upward movement.
Alexis Gendron,
Having just wrapped up his proper rookie season in the AHL with the Phantoms, and becoming just the third of their players to score 20 goals in their rookie season since the team relocated to the Lehigh Valley in the process, Gendron is undeniably a prospect whose stock is on the rise. He tapped into a new level of consistency in his game, a new level of maturity in his play away from the puck, and stepped up as one of few legitimate game breakers that the team had in their mix. But for those who heavily weigh projectability in their rankings, Gendron may have been a challenging player to rank — though his game is trending up towards being a legitimate NHL option, he’s moving into a crowded group of undersized skilled forwards projecting into the top-9, and the path for him to get to one of those spots feels a bit uncertain. All the same, he’s an intriguing player primed to have a big season under the Phantoms’ new coaching staff.
And that just about wraps up our loose ends! Which leaves us just with the main list to get to, at long last. We’ll see you back here on Monday to unveil who cracked our list in the 25th spot.