Flyers draft towering defenseman Maksim Sokolovskii after trading back in Round 1

ATLANTIC CITY — The Flyers were on the clock, and then they weren’t because they knew they could get their guy.

Read more Five things to know about Flyers draft pick Maksim Sokolovskii

With the 27th pick, the Flyers drafted 6-foot-7¼ left-shot defenseman Maksim Sokolovskii.

The pick came after the Flyers traded the 21st pick to the San Jose Sharks for the 27th pick (first round), as well as the 62nd (second round), and 120th (fourth round). They now have two picks in the second round, including No. 53, one in the fourth, fifth (136), and seventh (213).

As detailed in our final mock draft, Sokolovskii fits the archetype of player the Flyers select in the draft. He is well over 6-feet, tough, competitive, and plays for London of the Ontario Hockey League.

But here’s one difference: he’s not someone who needs to work on his skating too much.

“When you’re huge, and you can skate, that’s often all that you need for NHL scouts to sort of perk up and start to pay attention,” The Athletic’s NHL draft and prospects reporter Scott Wheeler told The Inquirer at the NHL scouting combine.

“He was much better in the second half; you could see him figuring it out. … You want that [big] guy to be mean and punishing, and he’s got a little bit of that.

“But it’s the skating. If he couldn’t skate, it would be a major red flag at that size, but because he can skate, teams get excited about that.”

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It is something that showed when he was 16 years old and went to play hockey at Atlantic Coast Academy in Massachusetts.

“He’s 6-foot-8, and he skates like he’s 5-foot-8,” Mike Taylor, the owner and one of Sokolovskii’s coaches, told The Inquirer recently. “… He came here, and I had a skating coach once a month come up and do power skating with our guys, and he does it like with UMass Amherst, and all these other schools. And he saw him skate, and he’s like, ‘Oh my God.’ He couldn’t believe how good his edge work was, and stuff, for being the size that he is.”

Sokolovskii has some bite on the ice, likes to be physical, throw the body around, and plays tough. He is considered a shutdown defender right now, as seen by his only eight points (two goals, six assists) in 44 regular-season games with London. But Taylor says there is an untapped offensive dimension to his game — as seen from his numbers at Atlantic Coast.

The consensus is that there was improvement in his game as he got more comfortable in the OHL and played well in five playoff games.

But like most in the draft class, Sokolovskii has his warts, and there are question marks surrounding his game, specifically his decision-making and puck play. He told The Inquirer at the NHL scouting combine that he wants to keep working on his foot speed and make his feet quicker. He’ll need some time to grow into his game, and the Flyers have the time for that.

Sokolovskii’s name was mentioned to this reporter at the combine as someone the Flyers were interested in, and some pundits think this is their guy. Ultimately, where there was smoke, there was fire as the Flyers selected the Kazakhstan-born defender at the end of Round 1.

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