Jett Luchanko

The Jett Luchanko Situation:

Without reservations, just about everyone can say that Jett Luchanko has been one of the most impressive Flyers through training camp so far.

When he’s on the ice, he’s a wrecking ball. On merit, he looks like he should be a Flyer in October. But this has sparked a debate, because the opposite side of the matter is that being rushed to the NHL could adversely affect his development.

In order to discern if that’s a real danger, it would help to know who and what Jett Luchanko is. Is this some camp Linsanity run? Is this just a flash in the pan? Is this indicative of a major and unforeseen development? Did he take a leap in the summer?

Reasonably, this was pointed out to me in regards to Jett Luchanko

Are we basing all of this on a few rookie and preseason games? Or is this always what Luchanko has been?

This side of Luchanko has been spoken about since before he was drafted.

J G is a Habs fan who was targeting Luchanko with the 21st overall pick, and the evaluation was consistent. He may or may not have more in the tank. There may not be a high ceiling, but he’s NHL-ready fast and his floor is insanely high.

It should come as no surprise that he’s impressed so far at camp if you understand the Luchanko evaluation.

Elite Prospects released a video studying the film of Luchanko’s U-18 performance that you can see here:

Once again, the evaluation is clear. He’s NHL-ready. He’s ticketed for the NHL. It’s the fundamental premise of the video. He has mastered NHL-level details and he has the athleticism to apply them right now.

People who really know Luchanko expected him to look exactly this way in training camp. They anticipated that this discussion would occur.

Flyers fans aren’t completely comfortable with this dichotomy, however. We were enamored with players like Zeev Buium or even Konsta Helenius. In the wake of those players being passed on, we needed to contrive ways to cope with the pick.

We circled his late August birthday. We marveled at his skating ability, and we began to construct a narrative that… actually… Luchanko isn’t a safe pick. Actually, Luchanko is an underdeveloped and immature prospect who’s just waiting to show the world that he’s actually Mat Barzal in waiting.

I’m not completely absolved of this, and it’s no less true of me. I had Zeev Buium irresponsibly high on my board. Anywhere from 2-3 depending on my mood. The article I released featured him at 2.

You can understand why I’d be furious that they passed on, in my view, a top-3 player for… someone I never once considered for the top-15.

You can understand why I’d like to cosign a lot of the cope pouring out in the coming days.

But there’s a difference between irrationally coping with the pick and accepting the pick. That difference is coming to light now. Jett Luchanko is showing us reality, and it’s up to us if we’d like to acknowledge what’s being shone in our eyes.

We’ve created a construct in our heads that we have used to accept the pick. If he goes to juniors for another year and balls out to a ridiculous degree by putting up 100+ points, then the pick will be validated because he will have proven that he has star potential.

But is that really how this works? Do Easton Cowan and Denver Barkey have star potential because they put up 100 points in their D+1 seasons? Not really, no.

This would be more legitimate if Luchanko had massive holes in his game that simply couldn’t be fixed in the NHL, and needed to be worked on in juniors.

Anthony DiGrazio asked what these things would look like. Here are some of the answers.

If you can’t improve finishing in the NHL, then should we have ever signed Owen Tippett to an extension? If you can’t improve finishing in the NHL, then how the hell did Travis Konecny have the 2 years he just had? If you can’t improve finishing in the NHL, then how did Auston Matthews grow from a 14% shooter to an 18% shooter?

How did Sebastian Aho go from an 11% shooter to a consistent 16+% shooter if you can’t improve finishing in the NHL?

If you can’t improve shot decisions in the NHL, then I expect everyone to wholeheartedly endorse my nickname for Owen Tippett: “Plexiglass Punisher.”

The Flyers Brain Trust doesn’t believe a word of that, so why should I believe Jett Luchanko can’t improve these things in the NHL?

Nobody actually believes that you can’t improve the details of your game in the NHL. I don’t know how to sincerely argue against this contention, because nobody sincerely believes it.

The entire premise of this Flyers season is that several players are going to rapidly develop their games in the NHL. The entire premise of this Flyers season, per John Tortorella himself, is that he is going to teach these players… IN THE NHL… how to score when they’ve established the offensive zone.

The bar isn’t “are you ready for the NHL?”

The bar isn’t “do you still have things that you can develop, because if so, go back to juniors.”

The bar is: “Can you provide value to the NHL team?”

It’s difficult to argue that Jett Luchanko doesn’t clear that bar.

So it’s worth asking… how does he do it? How can he provide value in the NHL?

In my view, the sport of hockey can be summarized by two key skills. Applying pressure to the opposing team, and navigating pressure applied to you. There are, of course, subsets of both fundamental skills. You can absolutely get more granular than that, but sometimes getting more granular simply muddies the picture.

In the sport of hockey, you create value by doing one of two things at a high level: applying pressure or solving pressure. There is no exception. There is no third option.

If we’re being real, Jett’s ability to solve pressure grades out as somewhere around NHL average. He has positives in this area like his ability to make passes under duress, but he also has deficiencies like bobbling the puck while he’s carrying it and therefore making himself more susceptible to pressure.

He isn’t providing notable positive value by his abilities to navigate pressure. As an 18 year old, his abilities here are underdeveloped. We can expect some improvement over the years, but he’ll never provide the bulk of his value this way.

He’ll never be Patrick Kane or Artemi Panarin. To him, Nikita Kucherov is a wizard who doesn’t make sense. And a year in juniors won’t change that.

He won’t master offensive creativity. He won’t even solidify his handle of the puck to the point that he’s Auston Matthews.

This just isn’t the place where he makes his money.

But that’s okay… because there’s another category.

Jett’s ability to apply pressure is high-end. It’s bordering on elite. Players with this kind of skillset to an elite level are often seen on Selke ballots. Sean Couturier, Anze Kopitar, Patrice Bergeron, Aleksander Barkov… these are players who are the cream of the crop when it comes to applying pressure.

Some are big. Some are smaller. Some are faster like Sebastian Aho. Others are slower like Mark Stone.

All of these players have an elite ability to apply pressure. You can’t teach it, and they develop it on their own time. It’s a natural gift that they have.

It’s an instinct. These players know when to pursue puck carriers hard. They know when to create 2-on-1’s for the defending team without exposing valuable space. They know when and where to hang back, and lure the offensive team into a trap that is sprung later down the line.

It’s an instinct born from the natural cognitive ability that is pattern recognition. These players would all score extremely high in mental tests revolving around pattern recognition. They’re gifted in the art of performing risk-benefit analyses in real-time.

It doesn’t always get picked up by scouts. In fact, it often doesn’t. While scouts are looking for the next 6’4″ megalodon to win them a Selke or be that playoff destroying lockdown menace, there’s another Patrice Bergeron or Sebastian Aho selected in round 2.

Jett has this ability. The question is… to what degree does he possess this ability? There are two answers. He may possess this ability to the degree of Ryan Poehling, which means he’s a useful center in your bottom 6. Or he may possess this ability to the degree of Patrice Bergeron, which means he’s one of the greatest defensive centers to play. Most likely? It’s somewhere in between those two outcomes.

But on what side of the spectrum does he fall? Bottom sixer or Selke candidate? We don’t know.

Here’s what I do know: this ability won’t be cultivated in the structureless and rudderless hockey that is CHL hockey in Guelph.

Here’s another thing I do know: these true Selke guys find NHL careers early. They find NHL careers at the age of 18 very often. Kopitar and Aho found NHL careers at 19, but it’s worth noting they played professional hockey overseas rather than playing junior hockey in that one year gap.

Mat Poitras is another player right now who may have this ability… and he made the NHL playing 33 games at the age of 19.

The latest debuting player I can come across who fits this mold is Mark Stone. A 7th round pick who almost literally could not skate that debuted at the age of 20.

With these players, it happens fast. And they rarely need to develop their game in juniors.

There’s a chance… just a chance… that Jett Luchanko could be another one of these players. We’ll see how the rest of camp goes.

But why would we resist this when it’s his only realistic path to being the top center that the Flyers desperately require?

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