It’s certainly been a good week for Oliver Bonk.
The Flyers prospect, though having gotten off to a late start to his professional career after an injury taken during rookie camp left him sidelined until a bit into the month of December, has been steadily ramping up his play through his first month of play with the Phantoms, and has really seemed to turn a corner since the team returned from their holiday break. Bonk closed out 2025 on a high note, getting in for his ninth game with the team and picking up his first professional point — the secondary assist on Lane Pederson’s first goal of the game — along the way. He continued to build up a solid run of play over into the next game, contributing a pair of shots against the Belleville Senators on Saturday and keeping up a high level of impact in their transition game, even though he was held off the board, but Sunday in Toronto saw him take that next step forward.
Past the halfway point in the period and holding on to a tie game at one goal — but only just barely — the Phantoms were looking for a bit of a jolt, a way to tilt the ice back in their favor. But with a second penalty taken in under six minutes and the Marlies gifted another power play to work with to continue to build on their mounting momentum, this game had a chance to go sideways on the Phantoms fast, but Bonk stepped up to bail them out in a big way.
Just as the power play was beginning, Tucker Robertson was able to kick start a breakout for the Phantoms, but instead of just chipping it deep into the Marlies’ zone and going for a change, the Phantoms went for the rush play — Lane Pederson skated it into the zone with some speed, and was able to thread a pass cross-ice through some traffic to the trailing Bonk, and even with an extra second to close in on goal and dust off the puck, Bonk was able to beat the Marlies’ goaltender cleanly, pulling his team back into the lead.
A BEAUTY 😍#LVvsTOR| #LVPhantoms pic.twitter.com/0jweRxcKGF
— Lehigh Valley Phantoms (@LVPhantoms) January 4, 2026
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Bonk has noticeably been ramping up his level of play, but this has also come with an apparent increase in usage — he’s getting some more play on the power play, and while the Phantoms have the benefit of the depth available to roll all three pairs pretty evenly, the eye would suggest that (a vague impression that, without time on ice data publicly available for the AHL, we’ll simply have to trust). The Phantoms have been careful in their handling of him, not wanting to throw too much at him too quickly as he makes a big jump up in levels, but he’s been taking everything in stride, and continuing to earn more trust and opportunities from his coaching staff.
It’s been a big weekend for former London Knights in the Flyers’ pipeline, as yesterday also saw Denver Barkey — forever linked with Bonk — pick up his first NHL goal on the road in Edmonton. Here, too, it was a nice exclamation point put on a strong run of play put together of late, as both have been continuing to put in good work to acclimate themselves to their respective levels. The narrative, it would seem, just writes itself.