When the Philadelphia Flyers made the off-the-board selection taking Jett Luchanko 13th overall at the 2024 draft, nobody was expecting him to be the biggest story of the early days of the 2024-25 season. But he defied the odds and made the team out of camp, in the process becoming the youngest Flyer of all time. But he’s not made just yet, there’s a clock still ticking down, and that’s one his nine-game trial run before his entry-level slide on his contract goes away. So let’s weigh some pros and cons of keeping Jett Luchanko on the Flyers’ roster.
Pros
He’s a center
This may be more of a condemnation of the rest of the centers on the team and the GM for refusing to address the known weakness, but one way or another, Luchanko is *a* center, and that alone makes him more valuable than your average player on the roster. He doesn’t appear to be the bonafide top six body they desperately need, but he’s not substantially worse than any other member of the foursome attempting to hold down the fort.
He can hang
Luchanko, on the whole, really hasn’t really looked overwhelmed at the NHL level. He’s made some mistakes like any rookie does, but he’s doing just fine treading water in the rather limited minutes that he’s getting, including minutes on both the power play and briefly on the penalty kill.
Cons
Is it best for the player?
This seems the be the question that gets overlooked the most. Just because he can “hang” doesn’t mean it’s best for his long-term development. There’s a good chance most early first round picks can “hang” in the NHL, but they’re ultimately demoted to focus on honing skills amongst their peers rather than learning trial by fire at the NHL level.
Torts
Tortorella has seemingly been Luchanko’s biggest cheerleader thus far, which is a bit surprising in and of itself, but historically speaking, he’s destined to get the tough love treatment sooner or later, and when it starts he’d be much better off at the junior level rather than in a coach’s doghouse in the NHL.
Conclusion
Jett Luchanko has been quite the story for the Flyers early in the 2024-25 campaign, but as the season progresses and the other problems on the team start to boil up, he gets pushed further and further down the priority list, and the idea that he should hold on to an NHL gig for the whole season dwindles.
We may have gotten some insight into this during the first Capital’s game on Tuesday night when he was scratched in favor of reinserting Nic Deslauriers into the lineup in order to spark the team with a fight rather than letting the prospect play. That could tell you all you need to know that the bloom has fallen off the rose already. They repeated the same decision on Wednesday as well.
While it may be a tactic to extend the nine-game slide as long as possible, they’re scratching their prospect during a supposed rebuild in the name of winning. It’s a decision that tracks with the handling of virtually every other prospect in the system, and a demotion back to a team where growing and developing in encouraged rather than punished may just be the flat out best option for the player at this point.
His ice time though his four games has been 14:36, 17:00, 12:14 and 12:23, he hasn’t registered a point since his two-assist outing during the first preseason game, and the most recent scratching indicates that there’s not ample opportunity for him to grow at the NHL level right now even if he’s their pound-for-pound most talented center.
He’s still got five games left before a decision needs to be made, something that can be stretched further if he continues to get scratched, but it’s worth remembering that the Flyers can send him back to juniors whenever they want, it’s just that if they do it beyond the nine-game slide, it’ll burn a year off his entry-level contract.
At the end of the day, Luchanko proved that he does indeed have an NHL future, something that many were skeptical about when the pick was originally made, but the Flyers have too many fires to deal with right now and keeping Luchanko on the main roster doesn’t feel like it’s going to happen anymore. He’s not a complete player yet and if he’s going to be the first one to get smothered in favor of guys like Deslauriers and Noah Cates then he’s best served playing 20+ minutes a night in all situations in juniors for the year and trying again next season rather than suffering in a low-ceiling depth role with the Flyers.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: Getty Images
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