Flyers return most of defense, but two youngsters are pushing

Flyers return most of defense, but two youngsters are pushing originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

The Flyers are bringing back the majority of their defense from last season’s playoff team.

At the NHL draft in late June, Danny Briere wasn’t bothered by that idea. This offseason, the Flyers held onto Rasmus Ristolainen, who’s entering the final year of his contract. In a four-player trade two months ago, the club parted ways with Emil Andrae and acquired Simon Benoit. Other than that, the Flyers’ defense stayed mostly intact.

“We have the same top five defensemen that took us to the second round last year,” Briere said.

But the Flyers’ general manager did mention David Jiricek and Oliver Bonk, a pair of young righty shots who are vying for opportunities.

“You have a guy like Jiricek, who’s going to come in and battle,” Briere said. “You have a guy like Bonk, who’s about to get into battle. I don’t know that these guys are quite ready to take on 22, 23 minutes a night. That’s where Risto gets to protect them.”

Ristolainen allows the Flyers to not rush either of the prospects. He delivered top-pair play after not being shipped off at last season’s trade deadline. The Flyers would love if Ristolainen can sustain that momentum at the start of this season. He has fought injuries and was unavailable last season until mid-December.

While Jiricek won’t be rushed into significant minutes, the Flyers do have some pressure to have him in the mix. Jiricek, a product of last season’s Bobby Brink trade, is no longer exempt from waivers. There’s a good chance the 2022 sixth overall pick would be claimed by another club if the Flyers tried to send him to AHL affiliate Lehigh Valley. So the Flyers will likely have him on the season-opening roster.

The 22-year-old is trying to find his NHL footing with the Flyers, his third team after playing for the Blue Jackets and Wild. The offensive ability and instincts are there; the Flyers will look for him to be a confident skater and defender in his own zone. In 15 games with the Phantoms last season, he had two goals and 11 assists.

Benoit could be Jiricek’s biggest competition in training camp and the preseason. The defense’s final lineup spot on opening night could be between those two.

“I just try to be a two-way defenseman, support the offense, too,” Jiricek said in April, a day before playing in the Flyers’ regular-season finale. “I have a big shot, so I try to use it.”

Bonk shouldn’t be overlooked.

“I think he’ll challenge at camp,” Flyers assistant general manager Brent Flahr said in July. … “He may force his hand. To me, the moment’s never too big for him, just the way he plays the game. Doesn’t matter the level.”

The Flyers like the 2023 first-round pick so much that they trusted him to play in last season’s second-round Game 4 elimination loss to the Hurricanes. The 21-year-old had played just one NHL game before getting the nod for his pressure-filled playoff debut against the eventual Stanley Cup champions.

“It was a good experience to play against the best team,” Bonk said in July. “Next year, we’re going to go for even better and try to beat teams like that. We’ve just kind of got to learn from it, see what we did wrong. There was a lot of good stuff in the series, too, from Philly, so I’m excited to see the future.”

Bonk’s one career regular-season game came in last season’s finale. He played like an NHLer, recording a goal and an assist in the Flyers’ 4-2 win over the Canadiens. It was a meaningful game for Montreal, which was still jockeying for playoff seeding.

“To see how he played, the swagger he played with, it’s great,” Flahr said. “I think he still needs to get stronger, which he’s working at. But he’s just such a smart player. I think if we probably put him with better players, NHL players, he might just take off. So we’ll see where that one goes.”

Lehigh Valley head coach John Snowden called Bonk an “extremely smart hockey player.” At development camp this summer, Snowden liked the improvement he saw on Bonk’s shot.

“Just the last couple of days, watching him shoot, I even went to him on the ice today and said, ‘Your shot has got some pop on it right now,'” Snowden said in June. “He’s scoring from distance, he’s doing those things that you have to have on the blue line nowadays in the game, you have to be a threat to be able to shoot from the top.

“I think he has made those gains. I know he’s putting in a ton of work, I know his brain is very, very, very high and it’s going to suit him as he starts to go up and he starts to play in the NHL here eventually one day. He’s making all the steps that are going to be vital for his development right now.”