Welcome to Broad Street Hockey’s Summer 2025 Top Under 25! The series is back and with the Philadelphia Flyers focusing so much on the future, it’s more important than ever. Join us as we rank the 25 best players under the age of 25 for the next few weeks.
No. 13: Denver Barkey
2024-25 Primary League/Team: London Knights (OHL)
2024-25 Statistics: 25 G, 57 A in 50 GP
Age as of 9/2/2025: 20
Acquired Via: 2023 NHL Draft — Round 3, Pick 95
We are in the heart of the 2025 Top 25 Under 25 now. We’re no longer diving into the depths of the organization looking at players who might never leave the AHL or freshly drafted prospects who have so many years of development ahead of them — it’s now players who are either considered one of the top prospects for the Flyers or actual, real-life NHL players. Denver Barkey falls into the former category, obviously.
While he does have his detractors due to his 5-foot-9-ness, Barkey has reliably been one of the better players in the entire OHL and it’s not just racking up the points either, but showing why he can make such an impact as he has for the powerhouse London Knights.
How did Barkey’s 2024-25 season go? Is his stock trending up or down from where it was entering the year?
If we want to sell Denver Barkey’s past season to even the most casual of fan, it’s the fact that he captained a team to a Memorial Cup win and led one of the most dominant rosters in junior hockey we’ve seen since some other rendition of the Knights that featured future NHL All-Stars.
In more detail, he took a small step forward in production — going from 1.59 points per game in the 2023-24 season to 1.64 points per game last season — but it was his details game that really shone as the Knights kept on racking up the wins. Barkey essentially peaked for how much he would be able to score in junior hockey, since it is still very hard to exceed that rate unless you’re some generational-level talent, but was able to put more of his focus on things that will make him a solid pro hockey player.
Joined by prospect expert and analyst Will Scouch of scouching.ca, during last season we watched an entire game of Barkey’s and broke down everything that we saw. If we want to go beyond the numbers and how he led London’s forwards in scoring once again and continued to be an agitator while not taking many penalties — this breakdown is for that.
As for his stock, it would probably be reasonable to say that it stayed the same compared to where it was at the start of the season. There was nothing more Barkey could do except win championships (which he did) so now it will just be about where he goes from here. If he suddenly scored 150 points in the OHL, then we might be able to say the stock rose, but considering the production stayed roughly the same and while we love all the details, the main issue of his size and his projectability to the NHL, hold the hype at status quo.
What are we expecting from Barkey this season? What should we be looking for from him?
The expectations for Barkey are maybe the most uncertain expectations in this whole ranking. We have seen smaller players that score heaps of points in juniors suddenly cave under the increased pace of professional hockey and never be able to recover from that. But, those smaller players typically don’t have the underlying tendencies and smarts that Barkey possesses.
Reasonably, we can all expect there to be some struggles in his first pro season with the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms but eventually would need to see a sign of improvement or at least him on the right path to eventually making the NHL. If he finishes the year with under 20 points and finding himself stapled to the bottom six, then we should consider that a bit of a letdown. But, there is also a world where his attention to detail make new Phantoms head coach John Snowden fall in love with him and he adapts incredibly well to the pro game and could even be in contention as one of the best rookies in the AHL next season.
The spectrum of outcomes for Barkey next season is so incredibly wide, but let’s just say that we want him to at least look comfortable by the last couple months of the season.
How does Barkey fit in the Flyers’ rebuild? Is it likely he’s going to be a part of the next good Flyers team?
Barkey is such A Flyer. And while we have some of that already on the team, having someone that can be that scoring pest winger down the lineup would be so useful. Or even just a complementary piece like a Brendan Gallagher on those mediocre Montreal Canadiens teams — if Barkey becomes what he could be in the NHL, he would be incredibly useful for the Flyers when they want to be good again.
His game actualized on the Flyers is someone who just is innately a playoff performer and someone every other team looks at and can’t find an answer for since they have all their resources tied up in Matvei Michkov and Porter Martone. Barkey won’t be the star of the team but could provide the scoring depth that makes or breaks so many Cup-hopeful rosters.
Determining if it’s likely Barkey makes it or not is near impossible. Even London and Lehigh Valley teammate Oliver Bonk has some reliability when it comes to his projection as some serviceable, NHL-level defender. For Barkey, it feels as likely that he’s a top-six staple for the Flyers in five years, as it is that he’s not even playing pro hockey in North America anymore. But, in saying that we are extreme fans of what he is right now and what we can dream of him becoming.
Previously in Philadelphia Flyers Summer 2025 Top 25 Under 25: