Jett Luchanko

How Jett Luchanko can stay on the Philadelphia Flyers roster during the ’24-25 season

Jett Luchanko has made the Flyers’ opening night roster, and he’ll make his debut tomorrow. It is a measure that I argued for repeatedly and vociferously, but it’d be unnecessarily pigheaded of me to say that this decision will be correct forevermore no matter what happens.

We haven’t seen him play regular season games yet, so it’s a good idea to go over what the Flyers’ organization should–and likely will–be looking for when they’re evaluating Jett Luchanko’s viability to stay on the team in the 24-25 season.

Why Jett Luchanko is here

In order to talk about why he might leave, we have to talk about why he’s here. Why he was given this opportunity matters, because at the end of the day, the number one way to stop receiving reps in the NHL is to convince your NHL team that you actually just aren’t worth the roster spot.

Sean Couturier. Morgan Frost. Ryan Poehling.

Those are the Flyers’ 3 NHL centers besides Jett Luchanko, and they all bring a particular mix of abilities.

Sean Couturier remains a highly intelligent supportive player. A genius in his way of supporting teammates by feeding them puck touches. He’s a meticulous player in his own end, and he hasn’t met a puck battle that he can’t win. He has deft hands and poise with the puck, as well as a distinct passing touch that allows him to make plays for his teammates all over the ice.

His biggest flaw besides health is a lack of pace in his game. It’s an issue that can get exasperated when he isn’t healthy. Couturier is a slow skater, and he has been since he entered the league in 2011. Given his other attributes, this hasn’t always mattered in the grand scheme of things.

But as health becomes an issue for him, and age begins to take its toll, his lack of pace can become a thorn in John Tortorella’s side. Especially as he’s attempting to construct a roster that plays fast.

Coots has all of the tricks to make sure the puck moves faster than he does, but sometimes, that just isn’t enough. Especially as a center in the Flyers’ system.

Sometimes, he’s slow to get to spots that Tortorella wants his players to get to because nobody can anticipate everything and centers in this way of playing have a lot of ground to cover. It helps to buttress anticipation with recoverability, and that’s not a quality Coots really brings.

Morgan Frost is a speedy and skillful player at the center-ice position. He competes at all ends, even if one wouldn’t mistake him for Sean Couturier in either his ability to win battles or his ability to make reads away from the puck.

In theory, that’s an acceptable tradeoff to make. Even John Tortorella isn’t interested in turning Frost into a checker, especially not more so than he is already. At this stage, forechecking is really the number one thing he brings to the game. And that’s the issue.

Frost is in no man’s land because he’s a player with the skill to be a playmaker, but who has yet to… make plays. At least, not consistently.

Frost’s forechecking led to positive results at both sides of the ice for the Flyers while Frost was on the ice, but it felt like a hollow victory when the team was suffering under cripplingly poor PDO and he had the talent to change it.

Frost was a no-show in transition for much of the season. Over a full season, he ranked in the 11th and 7th percentiles respectively in zone exits and zone entries. When Frost was on the ice, there was a troubling number of dump-ins and dump-outs. That should be the opposite of how someone like him plays, and it leads to an awkward fit.

Morgan Frost is not an ideal checking center. He’s not a shutdown guy. He can be a “3C” because that distinction in the NHL is rapidly becoming meaningless… the middle-6 is the middle-6, after all… but he should be an offensive player whether he’s on line 2 or 3.

The issue comes from a lack of willingness to take risks and make plays. At times, Frost plays so conservatively that he looks as if he doesn’t see the plays he could make.

This preseason was no different for him in that regard. When he could have made a play back to his defense, or dangled in order to buy time for his wingers to touch-up after the play ventured offsides, he opted for a cross-corner dump-in.

He made simple chip plays when a true playmaker had opportunities to stretch the offensive zone laterally with a pass to the weak side.

That may or may not come consistently for Frost this season, but like Couturier, his grip on a consistent spot in the lineup is… tenuous.

Ryan Poehling brings much of the same two-way acumen that Couturier does, and he has the ability to bring even more pace and apply even more pressure than Morgan Frost does.

There’s less conservatism to his game than Frost, and therefore, there are enough plays made that he looks as if he can bring some offensive utility. The problem with him is… PDO. Or, as Torts called it, BPO.

Ryan Poehling was great at winning the territorial battle in a hockey game. He had a 55.2% expected goal share at 5v5, which is absolutely terrific. Unfortunately, where he struggled was in actually winning his minutes during a hockey game. He had a 46.9% actual goal share.

He wasn’t alone on the Flyers with a poor PDO, but more of the problem seemed permanent with him. For one thing, it wasn’t primarily the fault of goaltending. His on-ice save percentage was an .888, and while you’d like to be in the .900s, this isn’t entirely just the luck of running into horrific on-ice goaltending.

It’s his on-ice shooting percentage… an abysmal 6.49%… where the true problem lies. Poehling leads to “expected” goals, but his ability to create actual goals is so lacking that you should not actually expect him to create any goals. The “expectations” are misleading.

His micro-stat profile provides some insight into why. He makes plays around the perimeter. He gets chances for himself around the perimeter, but he’s in the 39th percentile at setting up teammates for high danger passes and the 7th percentile when it comes to receiving high danger passes.

You could argue that the latter number is more of an indictment on his linemates, and I agree that they’re not fully exonerated, but he is also the primary culprit of that crime. Receiving high-danger passes is an individual skill, at least partly.

Absolutely, it helps when you’re playing with Artemi Panarin instead of Noah Cates. But at the end of the day, people who rack up high-danger chances for themselves do so because they’re beating defenders with off-puck routes to the net.

Just look at all the times Matvei Michkov “receives great passes from people” and “develops brilliant chemistry” with other players. It’s because, like a great wide receiver in football, that kid wins every route and he’s always open.

Kyle Connor, Auston Matthews, and Kirill Kaprizov all share this trait.

Ryan Poehling is the opposite of this trait. Either on-puck or away from the puck, he simply doesn’t see the seams that lead to dangerous offensive plays.

Defenses lick their chops when Poehling steps on the ice. He’s stuck to a fourth center role in an ideal situation.

It was important that you understood where the center picture is for the Flyers, so you can understand why Jett Luchanko is… at present… a solution to a lot of problems. If that remains the case, then he’ll get ice time.

If he gets ice time, then he’ll develop. If he doesn’t, then he won’t, and therefore he can’t stay.

At this point, Luchanko brings a mixture of attributes that means he has an edge on every center in the Flyers’ lineup, and it makes his spot in the lineup… at present time… wholly safe.

He brings pace that Coots doesn’t. He brings a willingness to make plays and more puck battle ability than Frost does. He brings actual vision to the table whereas Ryan Poehling has none.

He may not be their best center right now, but he is their most flexible. His combination of speed, details, and puck poise are currently impossible to replicate all at once. He solves problems on the ice, and solves problems for John Tortorella when he’s filling out his lineup.

As long as he continues to do so, he’ll stay.

As for his development? I’m adamant that development can happen in the NHL, as long as the prospect/player is receiving sufficient ice time, but there’s one trait that will be non-negotiable in Luchanko’s introductory tour through the league.

His puck poise, his willingness to pull up and find a better play, is the key to staying aboard. You can work on execution in the NHL. You can work on your shot in the NHL. But if you don’t have the willingness to keep yourself composed, and make tough plays under pressure?

Then you’re better off developing in Guelph… unironically.

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