via PHLY\u2019s Charlie O\u2019Connor. <\/a>\u201cWe\u2019ve liked what we\u2019ve seen, he could have stayed here, he showed that he can play, but we want more than that for him in the long run. We felt at this point, it was time for him to start playing high minutes.\u201d<\/p>\nIt certainly is true that Luchanko did not look out of depth \u2014 it was the same scenario last season when he was just 18 years old. The London, Ont. native played a total of four games and while he didn\u2019t do much to fill up the stat sheet when it comes to individual production \u2014 one single shot on goal and two shot attempt \u2014 visually, there were good things and some things he had to work on, like most players in the NHL and especially teenagers.<\/p>\n
Now, the question has to be asked: Why not just give him more minutes in the NHL? Luchanko was averaging just 8:58 TOI. There\u2019s a way you could have him playing much more like you want him to. Briere says it\u2019s basically not that easy, and he had to earn those minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf (Jett) had come in and really forced our hand, forced us to find a way (to get him) in the top nine, it might be different. But we didn\u2019t feel he was quite ready for that role,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As controversial as it can be, some teams, like the Flyers clearly, want their young players to show that they have earned their opportunity. In Luchanko, it felt impossible from our point-of-view for him to get more minutes than the centermen the Flyers have already.<\/p>\n
Sean Couturier is off to a very good start, so he\u2019s not playing above him. Christian Dvorak has been locked in as the \u201cresponsible forward\u201d for Trevor Zegras and Matvei Michkov, so he\u2019s above Luchanko. And Noah Cates has been one of the best two-way forwards in the entire league in the first weeks of the NHL season. You can even lump in the aforementioned Zegras as a center playing better than Luchanko was during his Flyers stint.<\/p>\n
If the season started and one or more of those players were playing poorly, there would have been a scenario where Luchanko played higher up in the lineup and in that top nine. But amassing just two total shot attempts and not being extremely strong in possession of the puck, is not a way to do it.<\/p>\n
Possible conditioning stint in the AHL?<\/p>\n
There was a path that the Flyers could have taken to get him more minutes with the AHL\u2019s Lehigh Valley Phantoms in a quasi loophole.<\/p>\n
If the Flyers were to healthy scratch the 19-year-old for five consecutive games, they would be able to then send Luchanko on a two-week conditioning stint down with the Phantoms. It would be a way for him to at least do something while being able to keep him on the roster.<\/p>\n
Briere said that the Flyers thought about it and it could have been an option, but it was just not the right call.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, we looked into that,\u201d Briere said. \u201cBut it was another week of him sitting around, not allowed to play him. And after that, you\u2019re only allowed two weeks (in the AHL), & you\u2019ve got to keep him on your (NHL) roster. \u2026 That complicates things. There\u2019s all kinds of little things like that, that were coming into play that just made it difficult. So we figured it\u2019s best just to send him back, have him go play heavy minutes and get ready for his junior year and hopefully the World Juniors.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Briere mentions, it\u2019s a lot of moving parts for not a whole lot of results. Since Luchanko was already a healthy scratch for the Flyers\u2019 last two games, he would need to sit out through November 1, when the Toronto Maple Leafs visit Philadelphia. He would then be able to start his conditioning stint for the next Phantoms game on November 5 against the Bridgeport Islanders. Starting that two-week clock would take him through the November 16 matchup in Hershey for the Phantoms.<\/p>\n
A total of five AHL games played. Five games and it would take Luchanko not being in an NHL game for almost an entire month. That\u2019s no way to truly develop a player, especially when you think he just needs to play as much as he can.<\/p>\n
So, the inevitable happened and now Luchanko is back to the OHL and is preparing for his final year of junior hockey. And, like Briere said, he can hopefully be ready to lace up for Team Canada at the World Juniors this year and play a more prominent role as the experienced 19-year-old version of himself.<\/p>\n
In the end, yeah, it makes sense. Probably made sense to just do this last month, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Flyers sent prospect Jett Luchanko back to the OHL\u2019s Guelph Storm after over three weeks of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-256524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}