Derek Mathers will again join the Adirondack Phantoms to finish out the AHL season. According to a team press release, the Phantoms have signed the prospect to an amateur tryout contract. The signing comes two days after Mathers’ OHL club, the Peterborough Petes, dropped their final regular season game and missed the postseason by a single point.
Mathers did the same a year ago, playing nine games with the Phantoms to close the season. He compiled zero points and 26 penalty minutes in those nine games, so let’s hope he improves upon that a little bit in his second AHL stint this year. He’ll probably get a bit longer of a look this time around, too, since the Phantoms have 17 games remaining in their season.
His 29 OHL points this year were a career high, so he’s certainly not even a scorer at lower levels and definitely projects as nothing more than huge pair of fists at the pro level. The Flyers must have liked what they saw last spring though, because in May they signed Mathers to an entry-level deal.
He attended development camp last summer and his contract slid through the 2012-13 season, thus not counting against the Flyers’ 50 contract limit. Since Mathers signed his deal at age 18, his contract is eligible to slide once more this fall, so it’s likely that even though he’ll have as many as 26 pro games under his belt, he’ll be an OHL player for his final year of eligibility in 2013-14.
