The first round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs came to a thrilling conclusion on Sunday night. Meanwhile, the NHL Draft lottery will take play on Monday evening. Simultaneously, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms need one win to reach the Atlantic Division Final. We’ll cover all of this and more in today’s Flyers Quick Hits.
Calder Cup Playoffs: Phantoms Take Control
The Lehigh Phantoms defeated the Hershey Bears, 4-2, at the PPL Center in Allentown on Sunday evening. Ian Laperriere’s team holds a lead of two games to one in the best-of-five Atlantic Division Semifinal series. Come Friday, the Phantoms have an opportunity to eliminate the two-time defending Calder Cup champions.
Veteran goalie Cal Petersen stopped all 15 shots he faced over 28:24 in relief of Phantoms starter Parker Gahagen (15 saves on 17 shots). There is no update on Gahagen’s status as of this writing. However, the four-night break in between Games 2 and 3 may actually be beneficial. Ordinarily, such a long gap between games in a playoff series would be far from ideal. It’s still not ideal, in fact, but both teams are in the same boat.
Petersen shook off the rust to come up with multiple vital saves. Repeatedly, he took away what initially appeared to be likely goals for Hershey.
Jacob Gaucher scored the Phantoms third shorthanded goal of the series, giving Lehigh Valley a 1-0 lead at 11:23 of the first period. It was Gaucher’s second goal of the postseason. The Phantoms took the lead to intermission. However, closely spaced tallies by Andew Perrot (1st) and Ivan Miroshnichenko (1st) put Hershey ahead by the 4:27 mark of the middle stanza.
Veteran Phantoms captain Garrett Wilson (PPG, 1st) knotted the game at 2-2 with a 5-on-4 marker at 13:09 of the second period. Phantoms rookie Jett Luchanko set up the Wilson goal. It was Luchanko’s fifth point (0g, 5a) of the playoffs but first of the current series. At 15:51, Nikita Grebenkin (1st) scored what proved to be the game-winning goal. An Emil Andrae shot caromed off the end boards. Promptly, Grebenkin pounced and sniped the go-ahead goal to the top part of the net. Additionally, Anthony Richard earned secondary assists on both the Wilson and Grebenkin goals.
Olle Lycksell (2nd) added insurance at 14:09 of the third period. Lycksell sped down the right wing and fired a shot from outside the dot past Hershey goalie Hunter Shepard (22 saves on 26 shots). Andrae earned his fourth assist of the playoffs on the sequence.
Special teams once again proved crucial to the Phantoms’ win. Lehigh Valley went 6-for-6 in killing penalties, including Gaucher’d unassisted shorthander off a Hershey turnover at their own blueline. Additionally, Wilson’s 5-on-4 goal highlighted a 1-for-4 night on the power play.
Luchanko is still looking for his first goal of the playoffs but has used his speed and anticipation very well in all three zones. His playmaking has stood out repeatedly. On Sunday, Luchanko hit the post on a breakaway opportunity. Fellow rookie Alex Bump has gotten under Hershey players’ skin and been targeted for some rough treatment but given it right back. On Friday, Bump will seek his first point since a two-goal performance in Game 1 of the W-B/S series.
NHL Draft Lottery Night
The NHL Draft lottery will be held at 7 p.m. EDT on Monday evening. The drawings for the first and second picks of the 2025 Entry Draft will be televised live (for the first time) on ESPN, Sportsnet and TVA Sports. By the odds, the Flyers hold a 9.5 percent probability of capturing the first pick or the second. However, the likeliest scenario has the Flyers dropping to the fifth (44.6 percent probability) or sixth (20.8 percent) spot.
Also, there’s one unlikely scenario (0.3 percent chance) that would see the Flyers pick third in this year’s Draft. More likely, but still just 15.4 percent in probability, would be to stay at the default fourth overall spot in the Draft. However, last year’s lottery saw all 16 teams remain in their pre-lottery default spots.
Jason Myrtetus, Brian Smith and I will do a Draft Lottery Night panel show live this evening, starting at 6:45 p.m. EDT. This special bonus edition of Flyers Daily will be available on the Flyers’ social media outlets. The three of us will also share the Flyers’ broadcast on our own pages. If the Flyers come away from the lottery with the first or second overall pick, Flyers general manager Daniel Briere will hold a Zoom press conference immediately afterwards.
Flyers Daily: May 5, 2025
Jason and I did our once-per-month “Ask Billy” edition of the weekly Mondays with Meltzer episode of the Flyers Daily podcast. The audience-driven Q&As are my favorite episodes. Unsurprisingly, much of this week’s 38-minute episode focuses on NHL Draft strategy at different points of the first round.
Colorado Pick Scenarios
The Winnipeg Jets’ double-overtime win in Game 7 against St. Louis had direct bearing on the Flyers’ assets in the NHL Draft. The Jets, who won the President’s Trophy for the NHL’s best record in the regular season, were less that two seconds away from going down to defeat in Game 7. This would not have clinched an earlier pick for the Flyers with the second of their three first-round selections in this year’s Draft. However, it would have increased the opportunities to bump up the pick originally belonging to the Colorado Avalanche.
The selection acquired from Colorado defaults to the 25th overall pick. The chance to move up as high as 22nd overall is now gone. Even so, the Flyers’ second selection (via the Avalanche) can still move up one or two spots. It all depends on the outcomes of the two Eastern Conference Semifinal series.
Flyers pick 24th if: The Florida Panthers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs BUT the Carolina Hurricanes lose to the Washington Capitals. Likewise, the Flyers would get the 24th pick via Colorado if the Panthers lose and Hurricanes win in Round 2.
Flyers pick 23rd if: Florida beats Toronto AND Carolina beats Washington.
The worst-case scenario would have the Flyers pick 25th with the Colorado selection. In this event, Toronto would play Washington in the Eastern Conference Final. Florida and Carolina both finished behind Colorado in the final NHL regular season standing. For this reason, the Flyers need the Panthers and/or the Hurricanes to win in Round Two in order to move up one spot apiece.
Foerster Contract: The Coronato Effect
Immediately after the Calgary Flames signed young winger Matt Coronato to a seven-year contract extension, my thoughts turned to Tyson Foerster. The Coronato deal could set the market place value for Foerster to ink a multi-year deal with the Flyers to preempt his own impending restricted free agency prior to July 1.
Worth $45.5 million overall, the Coronato deal carries an average annual value (AAV) of $6.5 million per season. This was a relatively team-friendly contract for Calgary but also represents a huge bump for Coronato on his expiring deal. The same would be true for Foerster.
There’s also some time sensitivity here. There are rumors that at least one NHL club is considering an offer sheet to Foerster if he reaches RFA status this summer. The same was true with Coronato, which likely hastened Calgary’s sense of urgency to get a deal done. The Flyers would likely match an offer sheet on Foerster, but it’d also drive up his cap hit. Philly does have the ability to add an eighth year to a Foerster deal as an incentive to bypass restricted free agency and sign an extension sooner rather than later.
IIHF Worlds
The 2025 IIHF World Championship tournament in Sweden and Denmark starts in four days. The Flyers have three players representing Team Canada (Foerster, Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim) and one (goalie Samuel Ersson) representing Sweden. Yesterday, Hockey Canada announced that Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby has committed to play in this year’s tournament.
Incidentally, in Canada’s pre-tourney tuneup against Austria on Sunday, Konecny played on a line with top 2025 NHL Draft prospect Porter Martone and Calder Trophy candidate Macklin Celebrini. Foerster played right wing on a trio with Will Cuylle and Barrett Hayton. On the blueline, Sanheim was paired with Calgary Flames prospect Zayne Parekh.
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