Tag: NHL Draft

The NHL scouting combine is over. The predraft news conference has concluded, and, starting Friday, the Flyers select their next generation in the 2026 NHL draft.

Determining who they will pick is always a gamble, especially this season; the Orange and Black will pick 21st in the first round. But since the Flyers will be making their picks in Atlantic City, let’s test our luck and roll the dice here in our third mock draft — which will only be two rounds as the Flyers traded away their third-rounder to Toronto on Tuesday.

First round: Jack Hextall

In our first mock draft, published before the NHL scouting combine, this spot belonged to defenseman Tommy Bleyl. In our second, published post combine, it was center Alexander Command.

Command likely will be long gone. Center Ilia Morozov, wingers Wyatt Cullen and Ethan Belchetz, and forward Maddox Dagenais, who is projected as a winger in the NHL, sound like they will be drafted before the Flyers pick, too. Fans also should keep an eye on Nikita Klepov as the Flyers brass travels to Florida to see the right winger and other Gold Star clients in their annual predraft camp.

So, the question remains: why not go back to Bleyl, a dynamic offensive defenseman? Yes, the Flyers need help on the power play, and the New York native is considered a top-tier quarterback; however, as general manager Danny Brière was quick to point out on Tuesday, “right now you might have some needs, but in four years, five years, that need might be different” — and the Flyers desperately need help on the man advantage today.

When asked about the small defensemen available, like the 5-foot-11 Bleyl, assistant general manager Brent Flahr said they need to be dynamic but then glossed over the position: “There are premier forwards at the top of the draft, a grouping of big-time defensemen, and then it goes back to forwards.” The Flyers do like 6-7¼ defenseman Maksim Sokolovskii, but taking him at No. 21 feels like a reach more massive than Jett Luchanko in 2024.

So, reading between the lines, it sounds like the Flyers are keying in on a forward.

With all that — if the Flyers do not trade the pick — let’s go with Jack Hextall, who, for the record, is a distant cousin of Ron Hextall, the former Flyers goalie and general manager. Jack told The Inquirer in Buffalo that the two have never met.

This Hextall is a 6-foot-½ inch, 195-pound right-shot centerman who is projected to play a middle-six role. The fact he is a righty is intriguing, as Luchanko, Jacob Gaucher, and Cole Knuble, who is more of a winger but can play down the middle, are the only right-handed pivots in the organization.

The 18-year-old from Illinois is known for his big motor, a high compete level, relentlessness, and, according to Ryan Ward, his coach with Youngstown of the United States Hockey League, “His brain is off the charts.” The Flyers love picking centers in the first round, plus they focus on all these traits when drafting, as seen with someone like Denver Barkey, who can play wing and center.

Hextall finished with 58 points in 59 games for the Phantoms (apropos, no?) and had seven points for the winning USA Hockey squad at the 2025 Hlinka Gretzky Cup.

“His bread and butter is how well-rounded he is,” The Athletic’s NHL draft and prospects reporter Scott Wheeler told The Inquirer. “The details off the puck, up and under sticks, retrievals, board battles, he’s got pro habits.

“If you talk to the guys in Youngstown, the first thing they say about him is that he’s a pro; this isn’t a junior hockey player, like a lot of these kids are. [He] does everything the right way, no selfishness to his game and he doesn’t cheat for offense.”

One more reason to keep an eye on him: he is heading to Michigan State in September.

Second round: Xavier Villeneuve

Where defenseman Xavier Villeneuve ends up is truly all over the map. He could end up going in the first or second round. As one coach told The Inquirer recently, if a team falls in love with a player, they may try to take them earlier than expected.

The latest mock draft by Corey Pronman, the senior NHL prospects writer for The Athletic, has Villeneuve going to the Flyers in the second round with the 53rd overall pick. It matches the word on the street that his stock has dropped a bit as the 5-10¾, 164-pound blueliner needs to work on his defense and gain strength to accommodate his small stature; however, there is a massive upside to Villeneuve, especially offensively.

The 18-year-old has a good stick, can skate, and dropped 38 points in an injury-plagued season — he had 14 points in 17 playoff games — for Blainville-Boisbriand of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. He had 143 points in 152 regular-season games across three seasons in “The Q” and had eight points in seven games at last year’s Under-18 Championships for the gold-medal-winning Canadians.

“He’s very dynamic. His first three, four steps are really dynamic. He’s got a great vision,” his coach, Alexandre Jacques of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League’s Blainville-Boisbrand Armada, told The Inquirer. “Offensively, he’s seeing things, and he’s able to create things that not too many players are able to do.

“At the offensive blue line, he is really, really, really deceptive, so he’s able to create something out of nothing with his edge [work]. Skating sideways is probably one of his greatest attributes, and he’s good at using [his edge work] to create shooting lanes or to create offensive situations.”

Down the road, yes, the expectation is that Villeneuve could help the Flyers power play as the quarterback. And you’d have to think the scouting and player development staffs have been keeping tabs on the Laval, Quebec, native as he was teammates with defenseman Spencer Gill, who is turning pro, with the Armada.

Called an “exciting player to watch” by Boston University coach Jay Pandolfo, Villeneuve brings a hefty comparable in Lane Hutson and is following in his footsteps by joining the Terriers in September.

One other name to keep in mind is Jaxon Cover. Although he does need to work on his skating — something the Flyers do not shy away from — he does have fantastic hands and creativity. A Penn State commit who plays for London of the Ontario Hockey League — the ex-team of Barkey and Oliver Bonk — a lot of his skill set comes from his time on the roller hockey rink while growing up in the Cayman Islands and playing in tournaments across North America before switching to ice hockey when he went to boarding school in Ontario in 2020.

It feels similar to the path of Ty Murchison, a Californian who switched to ice from roller hockey when he was 11 — and neither could stop when they made the switch. Murchison, the Flyers’ fifth-rounder in 2021, made his debut last season and could crack the opening-night lineup in the fall.

Now that the scouting combine has come and gone, it’s a perfect time to take another swing at who the Flyers could take in the first two rounds of the NHL draft on June 26 and 27. Plus, we’re adding Round 3 this time.

Of course, everything depends on how the teams in front of the Flyers draft, with the Orange and Black selecting deep in the pecking order.

There is a possibility they try to move up, which general manager Danny Brière has tried to do in previous years. The Flyers could also move down a spot to gain more picks, like Brière did in drafting Jett Luchanko in 2024.

With everything we heard in Western New York, here’s The Inquirer’s second mock draft.

First round: Alexander Command, C, Örebro HK U20 (Sweden)

In the first mock draft, defenseman Tommy Bleyl, who called his meeting with the Flyers in Buffalo “excellent,” was in this spot. The future Michigan State Spartan — he is returning to Moncton of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League for one more season — is still an option if the Flyers opt for a defenseman, which assistant general manager Brent Flahr hinted as a position where they need more depth.

Maksim Sokolovskii, a 6-foot-7 1/4, 240-pound blueliner who plays for London of the Ontario Hockey League — Denver Barkey and Oliver Bonk won a Memorial Cup with the same team last year — was also someone the Flyers showed interest in at the combine.

But the Flyers love drafting centers. Eight of the nine players Flahr has drafted during Brière’s tenure played down the middle. As the GM told The Inquirer, “You can never have enough centers.” So, if Alexander Command is available, it wouldn’t be surprising that they take him with their pick.

“He’s a natural center, he’s strong over pucks, he’s competitive, he’s got good contact skills, he can make a play. He’s well-rounded,” The Athletic’s draft analyst Scott Wheeler told The Inquirer.

“He just looks like he’s going to be a middle-six center in the league, and middle-six centers are extremely valuable, and almost never linger on draft day. He’s a player that virtually everybody likes, too.”

That’s the crux: Will he be there at No. 21 overall?

But Command, like Shane Vansaghi, who was taken in the second round last year, oozes that Flyers mentality of highly competitive and hard-working. When asked what he knew about Philly, he told The Inquirer: “They do right by themselves, take no [stuff], kind of like me.”

His game is also reminiscent of Scott Laughton’s intensity and relentlessness on the ice, with Command calling himself a “glue guy,” much like how the former alternate captain was described.

“Yeah, in practice, I mean, he can get angry, we can get angry at each other. I kind of like that. You push each other, and battle 100% every time,” teammate and fellow draft prospect Niklas Aaram-Olsen said when asked about Command’s intensity.

A left-shot pivot, Command turns 18 on June 16 and measured in at just under 6-1, 187 at the combine. He can win faceoffs and has a swagger to him, and he helped Sweden win gold at the Under-18 Men’s World Championship by notching seven points in seven games — the same numbers for another gold medalist, Luchanko, in his draft year — while centering the top line.

That came after he put up 44 points and 61 penalty minutes in 30 regular-season games and another 13 points in 14 playoff games for Örebro’s top junior team. He also earned a six-game promotion to the SHL squad in Sweden’s top league.

Second round: Ben Macbeath, D, Calgary (WHL)

If the Flyers snag a center in the first round, it could mean they look to the back end in Round 2 because, as mentioned above, they need depth on defense. But at No. 53, who will be there?

A few names pop, with that uncertainty. Juho Piiparinen, who says he grew up a Flyers fan in Finland, is probably going in the first round, as is the rising Sokolovskii. Overage prospect Timmy Runtso would be an interesting pick, as he brings some offensive punch and attention to detail the Flyers like, and so would Vladimír Dravecký, an under-6-foot all-around defenseman.

It’s always a guess here, but let’s go with Ben Macbeath, a 6-2 1/4, 196-pound defenseman who plays for Calgary of the Western Hockey League. Sound familiar? That was Travis Sanheim’s team when the Flyers drafted him in 2017.

Macbeath met with 28 teams, including the Flyers, in Buffalo, and it’s fair to note that the scouting staff does like WHL players. The Flyers have drafted four since Flahr took over for the 2019 draft, including Luke Vlooswyk and Matthew Gard out of Red Deer last season.

This past season, Macbeath notched 51 points (seven goals, 44 assists) in 67 regular-season games and added another two assists in seven playoff games. The WHL rookie killed penalties and got power-play time, but only had one power-play goal. He said at the combine his shot from the point “needs work.” He failed to mention he had 23 power-play assists.

According to Elite Prospects, he also needs to work on his reads and killing plays quicker, but the hope is he can build his aggressiveness and urgency when he heads to the University of Denver in the fall.

“I’d say I’m a two-way defenseman. I think I got good feet, which allow me to impact both sides of the game. I think I can be that fourth wave in the rush,” said Macbeath, a Devon Toews comparable who played for Canada at U-18s, at the NHL scouting combine.

“I can also create shooting lanes with my feet at the blue line, and I can also use it on the defensive side to close gaps and be hard on guys. So, I think that’s probably my biggest strength, for sure.”

Third round: Filip Růžička, G, Brandon (WHL)

Flahr acknowledged to The Inquirer that they’ll probably end up selecting a goalie in this year’s draft since the team has not done so in the past two years.

Several good netminders could be available, but since it’s the third round, you never know. For this one, let’s go with Filip Růžička, a 6-8 behemoth in net who spent this season playing for WHL’s Brandon, the same team the Flyers snagged Carson Bjarnason from in 2023.

“Obviously he’s massive, and takes up a lot of net,” Wheat Kings coach and former Flyer Marty Murray said in a text with The Inquirer.

“He made tremendous strides throughout the season. I think he was really raw when he arrived, and worked hard on his game with our goalie coach, Tyler Plante. I think there is still room to grow, but I believe his ceiling is very high.

“He had an outstanding season for us, and was exceptional in the playoffs.”

A native of Třinec, Czechia, which sits on the border with Poland, Růžička went 26-14-1 across 42 games in the regular season. He posted a 3.19 goals-against average and tied for the seventh-best save percentage in the WHL (.906).

In the playoffs, he started all four games, upping his save percentage to .936 while dropping his GAA to 2.47. The Wheat Kings were swept by Calgary in four games, with Růžička losing twice in overtime. In the series lid-lifter, he allowed the only goal in the game in triple overtime, stopping 64 of 65 shots; his opponent, Eric Tu, stopped all 49 shots he saw.

The goalie was not at the scouting combine and, according to Elite Prospects, may be heading back to Mountfield HK in his native Czechia next season.