The second round is underway in the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs. The NHL Draft Lottery didn’t go the Flyers’ way. Featuring four Flyers players, the 2025 IIHF World Championship tourney starts in three days. The Lehigh Valley Phantoms can close out their Calder Cup series against Hershey on Friday. Meanwhile, Comcast-Spectacor made a major announcement on Tuesday. All of this (and more) follows in your Flyers quick hits for May 6, 2025.
Flyers Arena Name to Change in September
Comcast Spectacor announced an upcoming name change for the Flyers and 76ers home arena. Effective September 1, 2025, the Wells Fargo Center will become Xfinity Mobile Arena. The naming rights contract will run through the 2030-31 season.
The new arena name is the fifth in the building’s history. However, it’s the first name change since 2010. The former names prior to Wells Fargo Bank’s acquisition of the naming sponsorship rights: CoreStates Center (1996–1998), First Union Center (1998–2003) and Wachovia Center (2003–2010). Xfinity, a Comcast subsidiary, is the first non-bank sponsor to acquire the naming rights.
A quick anecdote: Before construction on the current-day Flyers arena was completed, the arena’s temporary name was “Spectrum II”. Flyers Hall of Famer Joe Watson, long retired from playing but a sales executive for the team, was deeply involved in courting a naming rights sponsor throughout 1992 and 1993.
Watson had a meeting with MBNA executives. Talks progressed to the point where MBNA was a viable finalist. Watson brought along Flyers superstars Eric Lindros and Mark Recchi to plug the value of getting in on the ground floor.
The talks fell through. MBNA decided not to tender a competing bid against CoreStates’ ($45 million). Watson missed out on a five percent commission if he’d been the one to reel in the sale.
“That would have been worth $2.25 million. It slipped away. That’s how it goes with sales,” Watson recalled with a chuckle.
“But here’s the kicker, buddy. Years later, I saw my contact at MBNA. He said the company didn’t realize how global the brand was. It would have been worth every cent. Oh well!”
Watson may not have landed the MBNA account, but he did secure a season-long advertising campaign from Ellio’s Pizza. Folks my age or older may recall the “Philly’s hottest line” television commercials with Lindros, Recchi, Pelle Eklund and Bob Clarke.
Flyers Settle for 6th Pick in 2025 Draft
The Philadelphia Flyers fell one favorable ping pong ball away from winning the first overall pick of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft. Instead, they saw the New York Islanders jump up from the default 10th overall pick to the No. 1 pick of the Draft. The second drawing saw Utah move up from the 14th to the fourth overall selection (originally the Flyers’ default spot).
As a result, the Flyers dropped the maximum two spots in the final Draft order. Rather than picking fourth, the Flyers will pick sixth.
Spare me the conspiracy theories. The NHL did not fix the Lottery on behalf of the Islanders (to distract from the 2026 All-Star Weekend h havecontroversy) and Utah (relocated from Arizona last year). The lottery is what it is: a weighted luck-of-the draw outcome.
Now the real work gets underway for the Flyers’ hockey ops staff. Once the projected top two picks (Matthew Schaefer and Michael Misa) are off the board, many different scenarios can play out from picks three to five. Chicago, Utah and Nashville. respectively. own the next three selections ahead of the Flyers.
The 2025 Draft is a year in which I truly do not think there’s a clear-cut floor-to-ceiling differential in the next batch of players beyond Schaefer, Misa and Porter Martone. The next group, primarily consisting of centers and center-wing swingmen, each have their own strengths. Each has some potential drawbacks. A few (potentially extending through the top 10 or so) entail risk vs. reward decisions to weigh.
For example, there’s been a push-back against smaller centers as potential NHL top-line centers. James Hagens isn’t super-small ala Marco Rossi, but he’s on the smaller end of average size for a current-day top center candidate. Roger McQueen (6-foot-5 with impact player tools) comes with back injury concerns. Some believe Caleb Desnoyers is a fairly “safe” pick with decent all-around upside, but perhaps not offensive star caliber. So on down the line.
There are quite a few players in this year’s Draft who could go on to very solid NHL careers. Some may even reach star level. Superstars? Franchise players? Probably not. Generational players? Almost certainly not, even including the potential top three.
To me, the 2025 crop is one where there may not be a lot of “home run” candidates. However, there is some decent quality to bes found. With the Flyes holding 11 picks this year including three in the first round and four in the second, they must hit the mark in both drafting and development.
If that means packaging some assets to move up, fine. If it means spreading assets around a bit over the next Draft year or two, so be it. If it means trying to acquire a couple current pros who fill needs (at the cost of packaged assets and/or players), okay. The bottom line: these decisions must pan out. Decide wisely and hope for a bit of luck on top of it. The Lottery itself brought no luck.
Calder Trophy: Michkov Not Among the Finalists
Twenty-year-old Flyers winger Matvei Michkov led all NHL rookies in goals (26) during the 2024-25 season. He tied San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini for the overall points (63) lead among rookie forwards. He’s a shoo-in for a spot on the NHL All-Rookie Team. In fact, by almost any measure, Michkov had and outstanding first season in the National Hockey League.
However, Michkov is not one of the top three vote-getters for the Calder Trophy as NHL Rookie of the Year. The top three finishers in the balloting were Montreal defenseman Lane Hutson. Celebrini, and Calgary Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf.
Notice that I did not use the words “finalist” or “nominee”. There are no “finalists”. There’s no process of elimination from a long list to a list of three. It’s one vote only, and the top three vote-getters are announced before the NHL Awards ceremony. Strictly speaking, there are also no “nominees”. Every player who qualifies as a rookie in a given season is eligible.
To me, “finalist” and “nominee” are marketing-driven descriptors for the NHL Awards Show. The winners are already known to the NHL (and PHWA senior leadership). The tabulations are in. The voting is closed. The winners will be announced in a few weeks. It is what it is.
Michkov deserved a top-three slot. However, I don’t begrudge any among Hutson, Celebrini or Wolf. The Flames would not have come as close they did to making the playoffs (eliminated in Game 81 and then losing out to St. Louis via tiebreaker) if not for Wolf. Besides, it’s more motivation for the ultra-competitive Michkov over the summer and beyond.
The Flyers have never had a Calder winner. Not Hall of Fame left winger Bill Barber. Not near-HOF winger Brian Propp. Not Mikael Renberg (best rookie offensive season in Flyers’ history). Not even Ron Hextall, who ran away with the Vezina Trophy and, after the balloting closed, won the Conn Smythe Trophy in the playoffs.
Worlds: Opening Day Schedule
The 2025 IIHF World Championship tournament opens on Friday in Sweden and Denmark. There are three games on Day 1: Sweden (Samuel Ersson) vs Slovakia, Austria vs. Finland, Switzerland vs. Czechia and Denmark vs. USA. Day 2 is highlighted by Team Canada taking on underdog Slovenia.
On Saturday, most eyes in Canada will be on Sidney Crosby and retiring teammate Marc-Andre Fleury. However, in Philadelphia, the attention will go to Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim and first-time tournament participant Tyson Foerster.
That Ellio’s commercial is pretty funny.
Number 21 scores for Washington and the first thing I think is, “nice goal by Brooks Laich!”
Just when I was getting used to Wells Fargo Center…..