Because they won’t be picking at the top of the NHL draft order this year, the Philadelphia Flyers must select the best player possible with the 21st overall pick.
Any other outcome, assuming the pick isn’t traded, is a mistake.
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The Flyers, too, have been under fire for their draft choices in recent seasons, spending a total of three first-round picks to acquire centers Jack Nesbitt and Jett Luchanko, players with offensive upsides that seem to be average at best.
And the idea of going all-in on a center in the 2024 and 2025 drafts were fine, too. Options like Konsta Helenius and Cole Reschny were on the board, but the Flyers ultimately bypassed both.
To that end, the Flyers could have secured themselves a blue-chip prospect for the left side of their defense, which is barren in the prospect pool. Zeev Buium and Jackson Smith were available–the former was and still is a sore subject–but the Flyers had their minds made up.
Now that they have stocked up at the center position with Luchanko, Nesbitt, Matthew Gard, Heikki Ruohonen, and Jack Berglund, the Flyers have no reason to reach for a center again, but that is exactly what they do in Corey Pronman’s latest NHL mock draft for The Athletic.
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Pronman has the Flyers selecting USHL Youngstown Phantoms center Jack Hextall, a relative of Flyers legend Ron Hextall, with the 21st overall pick.
“Hextall is a highly intelligent, diligent pivot who’s a slick playmaker with excellent offensive sense,” Pronman writes.
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“Though his skating doesn’t stand out and he hasn’t been a prolific scorer, his strong two-way detail makes him a very safe bet to be a useful pro down the middle for the Flyers.”
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Some of those word choices are nightmares to read for Flyers fans: skating doesn’t stand out, hasn’t been a prolific scorer, very safe, and useful.
Hextall, 18, scored 20 goals, 38 assists, and 58 points in the USHL this season, and he’s committed to Michigan State University, where he’ll team up with Flyers prospect Shane Vansaghi next year.
And, with the very next pick, Pronman has the Flyers’ archrival Pittsburgh Penguins taking defenseman Ryan Lin at 22.
“Pittsburgh doesn’t really have a future power-play QB in its prospect pool, and Lin could be one,” Pronman said.
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The Flyers, with their power play being downright awful for years now, go with the “very safe” pick instead of someone who could be a “future power-play QB.” Yeesh.
Of course, this isn’t to say that the Flyers will actually do this when the real thing plays out on June 26, but they don’t have a strong enough track record for us to sit here and rule that out, either.
I’m a big fan of the undersized Xavier Villeneuve, for example, but he doesn’t even make Pronman’s top 32 here. That would be someone who checks all the boxes for the Flyers, in terms of both position and talent level.
Other higher-upside players the Flyers pass on in Pronman’s latest mock include Adam Novotny, Maddox Dagenais, Brooks Rogowski, Liam Ruck, Tommy Bleyl, and Nikita Klepov.
In order to truly take the next step in their rebuild, the Flyers will need to find the courage to think outside the box and take risks when the stakes are higher.
