NHL draft: Best remaining fits for the Flyers entering Day 2

ATLANTIC CITY — Now that the first round is over, it’s time to turn the page to Rounds 2-7.

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After selecting towering defenseman Maksim Sokolovskii in Round 1, the Flyers have picks Nos. 53 and 62 in the second round, 120 in the fourth, 136 in the fifth, and 213 in the seventh.

Here are 14 names to keep an eye on for Day 2 (which begins at 11 a.m. on NHL Network and ESPN+) in alphabetical order.

A power forward, the Norwegian just put up 20 goals and 40 points in 29 regular-season games in Sweden’s junior league before adding another eight points in 13 playoff games. He spent some time in the SHL, Sweden’s top men’s league, this season, and put up points on the international stage. He’s not a playmaker, but according to Karl Kling, his coach with the junior team, he’s explosive and has a great shot; however, he has to play more to his strengths, work on driving to the net, and be more direct in his game. He is a boom-or-bust kind of player.

Off to Providence College in the fall, his coach, Nate Leaman, told The Inquirer he is “quick out of the gate, good hockey IQ, really competitive, good shot. He does a lot of things well.” Cali is a 200-foot center — says “it’s fun” to take care of his own end — has a great motor, says it’s satisfying to steal pucks, and won’t be 18 until early September.

Named the tournament’s best defender at the U18s this spring, Slovakia’s captain recently turned 18. He’s a bit of a project, but has already proven he can be a workhorse by averaging more than 20 minutes for Slovakia on the top pair, including ice time on the power play and penalty kill.

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. He killed penalties, got power-play time, and described himself as “a two-way defenseman. I think I got good feet, which allow me to impact both sides of the game.” According to Elite Prospects, he needs to work on his reads and killing plays quicker. He can work on building his aggressiveness and urgency at the University of Denver in the fall.

The Penn State 2027 commit is a skilled winger who notched 75 points in 68 games this past season as an OHL rookie. The son of a mom from Prince Edward Island and a dad from Russia, he found his love of the game from his brother. “I think something I pride myself on is how I see the ice, my vision,” he told The Inquirer. “I think I make my teammates around me better. Another thing I pride myself on is my compete, my work ethic.”

Morrison was our second-round pick for the Flyers in Friday’s final mock draft. His GM, Simon Gagné, has the scouting report: “A big, strong defenseman. Likes to hit. Likes to [catch] guys [with their] head down, middle of the ice type of defenseman that you don’t see too often in the league anymore. They’re seeing, sure, that Charlie needs to improve — he’s only played two years in our league — but he’s getting better and stronger, and that’s definitely a guy that could be a good pick for the Flyers.”

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Although he initially was a baseball player — his father, Casey, was drafted by the Chicago White Sox and reached triple A, and the Los Angeles Dodgers selected his uncle Ryan — Rogowski is a 6-7, 236-pound center who is committed to Michigan State. Nick Fohr, who coached him at the U.S. National Team Development Program, describes him as a big, dependable centerman with a strong work ethic who has a big personality and was a vocal leader on the bench.

A 6-8 behemoth in net who spent this season playing for the same team the Flyers snagged Carson Bjarnason from in 2023, the Czechia native tied for the seventh-best save percentage (.906) in the WHL in the regular season. In the playoffs, he started all four games, upping his save percentage to .936 while dropping his GAA to 2.47. 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.”

A Penn State commit, the Russian spent the past year playing in the QMJHL for Victoriaville, where he centered the top line. He won 54.8% of his faceoffs and put up 82 points (31 on the power play) in 63 games on the way to being named the league’s offensive rookie of the year despite not turning 18 until the end of April.

Another guy that Gagné is pushing for the Flyers, here’s a scouting report from Flyers prospect and teammate Nathan Quinn on the UMass 2027 commit: “I think he’s a really, really good offensive defenseman. He has a lot of skills with the puck. Obviously, it was a hard season for him — he had a bad injury — [and] he’s a really good kid too, but his strength is with the puck. He’s a really good guy on the power play. His skill set is pretty impressive.”

“If we’re in a position to draft a top-end goalie, we’ll look at that,” Danny Brière said Friday. Many expect the Czechia native, who is off to UMass in September, to be the first goalie off the board. A right catch goalie, he went 30-9-3 with a .916 save percentage for the Phantoms (apropos, no?). “Nothing that rattles him, very athletic, tracks pucks really well. His hands are really good, he’s never out of a save, he’s got like the next puck mentality, like if he gets scored on, he’s stopping the next puck,” Youngstown coach Ryan Ward said.

Size is probably what cost Villeneuve a first-round slot; that and the 5-10¾, 164-pound blueliner needs to work on his defense and gain strength to accommodate his small stature. He’s dynamic — and that’s the word assistant GM Brent Flahr said a small guy would need to be. “Offensively, he’s seeing things, and he’s able to create things that not too many players are able to do,” his coach with the Armada, Alexandre Jacques, told The Inquirer. “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.” Villeneuve is following in the footsteps of his comparable, Lane Hutson, and will play for Boston University this season.

There is mutual interest here, but it all depends on whether he is there. Zielinski grew up in Berlin, Camden County, and played for Flyers Elite before heading to North Jersey to suit up for the Avalanche. As he said, he knows what it takes to be a Flyer, and at the combine, Brière asked him if it felt like home. His name started rising after his play at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, and the kid who loves to score will head to Providence in the fall, with Leaman calling him “really crafty around the net.”

A later-round option, there are two reasons he is on this list. One is that he is off to Notre Dame, where highly regarded Flyers prospect Cole Knuble just turned pro from. And two, he finished in the top 25 of 13 fitness tests at the scouting combine. There are only 15 tests. It was noted during his draft year how well Jett Luchanko did in the testing, and he only finished in the top 25 in seven tests.

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