Jacob Gaucher

They don't have Konechny, they don't have Tippett, they don't have Ristolainen.

They're not franchise-changing players, but they're guys that when you replace them with Jacob Gaucher, Michael Bunting, and whatever defenseman you put in there for Risto, that's a big downgrade.

And that's what you're seeing here, not having really secondary scoring after Michkov, Zygris, Marton.

You don't have a second line that's going together.

And then Bunting, Barkey, and Knubel is the fourth with your three injuries there being Tippett, Grabenkin, and Travis Konechny.

And that's why I was surprised that they sent Gaucher down.

One, the Phantoms needed the help.

They got gutted with the Flyers' injuries.

Like, I totally forgot about Michael Bunting just with like O'Shea coming in and like.

You know, Wilson was up and got sent down and all these other moving pieces.

So it makes sense now why they sent Gaucher down.

I guess Michael Bunting set to get back into the lineup.

We keep hearing about how during a rebuild player development is at the forefront.

And the names that Riley Armstrong and his group have helped develop to get to a point where all of a sudden it's fun the last three games to watch a Philadelphia Flyers, whether it's bump, whether it's barky, whether it's Hunter McDonald, boy can he hit, Oliver Bonk, Cole Kniebel with the pair, with the family in tow, Porter Martone or Jacob Gaucher, Riley Armstrong, head of player development for the Philadelphia Flyers, is getting it done.

With that, we'll bring aboard Kevin Kurz from The Athletic to fill in the blanks here on what we've seen and what seems like, like I'll be honest with you, Kevin, it feels, again, you're closer to us, I'm just going to ask you, it feels like this was a directive from above? hey, play the kids.

If we're going down, we're going to play the kids.

They called up Hunter McDonald.

And they called up Jacob Gaucher, however they want to say it.

I always think it's Gaucher.

And obviously, these guys... either were making their debut or have had experience, Cole Knubel making his official debut, Bump coming back up with the team, McDonald had his cup of coffee last year, and Gaucher has always been kind of – we call him a vet, but he's really 25 years old, but he is a more reliable bottom six option for the Flyers or has been for the past couple years.

Those guys were not missed.

And my big concern was like, all right, they might not be playing well, but like you're replacing them with, you know, Jacob Gaucher and Cole Kniebel in his first NHL game.

Even those guys not playing well, it's probably still a downgrade.

And it probably was to a degree, but certainly not a dramatic one.

Yeah, it's going to be an interesting fall, I think, for Jet Lutenko.

I think, you know, other guys like Jacob Gaucher and Noah Powell are just like doing the work.

Yeah, they do the hard work.

And, you know, we'll see what happens there.

There's also some valid critiques that came out of that first game, and, and things for them to work on.

So we're gonna get into all of it here, but I think, you know, the kind of highlight of the game, for me at least, was seeing that they put together that top line that we had talked about, albeit in a very fascinating way by John Snowden with Jet Luchenko centering Jacob Gaucher and Cole Kanubel.

And obviously we wanted to see those guys play together, uh, but choosing Gaucher to swing out to the wing here, uh, over Luchenko, which is expected but also interesting in how it played out, right?

Yeah, I mean, that was something I talked about, saying that's probably his best way to make it into the NHL in some fashion.

For Gaucher, yeah.

For Gaucher.

Yeah.

And so I think that's the right thing for him, and, you know, let Luchenko prove if he can play center, and Kanubel at some point will probably play some center anyhow, so I'm not really worried about that.