The Philadelphia Flyers keeping young prospect Jett Luchanko around for the first three weeks of the season had as much to do with their desire to influence his development as long as they could as it did with getting him further NHL experience.<\/p>\n
General manager Daniel Briere indicated as much on Oct. 6, the day the Flyers\u2019 opening night roster was revealed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s part of the reason to keep him here, is we have control a little bit more over his development,\u201d Briere said.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s more to the equation. Luchanko\u2019s junior team, the Guelph Storm, aren\u2019t a strong club. They finished in last place in their conference in 2024-25 with a 21-38-5-4 record, and while they\u2019re a bit better so far this season \u2014 6-6-2-0, in eighth place in the 10-team conference \u2014 they are still short on high-end talent.<\/p>\n
After reassigning Luchanko to Guelph on Oct. 27, Briere has little, if any, say in the immediate future of a player for whom they still have high hopes. That\u2019s something else he acknowledged this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t control what happens whenever we send him back to juniors,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t look at where he\u2019s going to go. I con\u2019t control what the team does.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, what comes next for the No. 13 overall selection of the 2024 draft?<\/p>\n
The Storm on Thursday revealed that Luchanko would serve as the co-captain with Charlie Paquette. Luchanko was previously the sole captain, a role he took on last January through the conclusion of the 2024-25 season.<\/p>\n
But that doesn\u2019t mean Luchanko will finish the season in Guelph. According to a league source, there\u2019s still a desire from the player\u2019s camp to be dealt to a more competitive junior club. And there\u2019s one team in particular that they\u2019re targeting: the Brantford Bulldogs.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a move that the Flyers would surely welcome, too. The Bulldogs are not only one of the top teams in the OHL \u2014 they\u2019re currently in first place in the Western Conference with an 11-0-2-1 record \u2014 but they\u2019re coached by Jay McKee, who is a former teammate of Briere\u2019s and who even interviewed for the Flyers\u2019 vacant head coaching job that eventually went to Rick Tocchet, according to colleague Scott Wheeler<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Brantford, Luchanko would likely assume a top-six role along with promising center Adam Benak. The Bulldogs are also much deeper at wing than Guelph, including Marek Vaneker, a first-round pick of the Chicago Blackhawks in 2024.<\/p>\n The Windsor Spitfires, in first place in the Eastern Conference with a 12-2-1-1 mark, are another possible destination for Luchanko. Windsor already has a Flyers first-round pick on its roster, too, in Jack Nesbitt, the No. 12 overall pick in the 2025 draft.<\/p>\n Guelph trading Luchanko is still no sure thing. But one potential development would make a trade much more likely. Guelph and Kitchener are the two finalists to host the 2027 Memorial Cup, with a decision expected by the end of November. Should Guelph win that bid, it will almost certainly deal Luchanko for future assets in order to try and load up for a run at the OHL championship. Luchanko, of course, if he\u2019s not with the Flyers next season, will finally be permitted to play for the AHL\u2019s Lehigh Valley Phantoms by then.<\/p>\n Regardless, one worry that the Flyers don\u2019t have, according to team sources, is Luchanko being a part of Canada\u2019s World Juniors team at the end of the calendar year. While there could be some significant competition for their four center-ice jobs, particularly if the San Jose Sharks and Seattle Kraken permit top picks Michael Misa and Berkly Catton to play, Luchanko\u2019s spot seems to be safe. The Flyers were unhappy with Luchanko\u2019s usage for Team Canada last year, as he skated primarily as the fourth-line center for that team that ultimately disappointed by getting knocked out early.<\/p>\n The Athletic\u2019s Scott Wheeler contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Flyers keeping young prospect Jett Luchanko around for the first three weeks of the season had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,1789,99],"class_list":["post-264781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-philadelphia-flyers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264781","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=264781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}