Philadelphia Flyers prospect check: Laughton still awesome, Gostisbehere and Leier also good

With a few prospects here and there within the Flyers’ organization worth watching, we’re going to try and keep you all updated every once in a while on how their seasons have been going. All stats in this post up to date through Sunday, December 15.

Canadian Major Junior (CHL)

Scott Laughton (F, Oshawa, OHL): 29 games played, 24 goals, 26 assists
Anthony Stolarz (G, London, OHL): 26 GP, 20-3-1, .926 save percentage (696 saves on 756 shots), 3 SO

Samuel Morin (D, Rimouski, QMJHL): 25 GP, 4 goals, 11 assists, 47 shots on goal

Tyrell Goulbourne (F, Kelowna, WHL): 28 GP, 5 goals, 8 assists, 48 PIM
Taylor Leier (F, Portland, WHL): 31 GP, 22 goals, 21 assists

Notes: Scott Laughton rules. But you knew that already. He’s at Canadian World Junior camp right now … as is Taylor Leier, who’s also putting together quite a nice season for Portland. He and Laughton have been playing on a line together for Canada, per TSN’s Bob McKenzie … Morin seems like he’s been quite streaky — I’ll check his games and one week he’ll be great and the next he’ll struggle. It sounds like he had a pretty rough go of things at the Subway Super Series last November. And he’s had injury troubles and was suspended for a game a couple weeks ago. But he’s just about matched his point total from last season in just over half of the games, so the improvement is clearly there. The consistency is what has to come next … Anthony Stolarz is second in the OHL in save percentage. Gotta think he’s the frontrunner for the Phantoms’ starting job next season. He is also at World Juniors, for Team USA.

Europe

Robert Hagg (D, MODO, SHL): 33 GP, 1 goal, 4 assists, 2 PIM, 32 shots on goal, 13:08 per game

Valeri Vasiliev (D, Spartak, KHL): 26 GP, 2 assists, 12 PIM, 16 shots on goal, 13:10 per game

Notes: It appears as though Hagg has seen his responsibilities drop a bit this season, which maybe isn’t too surprising given that from the sounds of things there are a lot of capable blueliners for MODO and he’s just 18 and all. And he was named to Sweden’s WJC roster, unsurprisingly. That said, he apparently played only 33 seconds of MODO’s game last weekend, so not sure what’s up there … Vasiliev is definitely playing a more defensive d-man role for Spartak, but he’s been impressing someone, since he’s on Russia’s preliminary WJC roster.

NCAA

Shayne Gostisbehere (D, JR, Union, ECAC): 18 GP, 6 goals, 10 assists, 86 (!) shots on goal, 12 PIM, 18 blocked shots
Reece Willcox (D, SO, Cornell, ECAC): 12 GP, 2 goals, 2 assists, 6 shots on goal, 6 PIM, 10 blocked shots

Michael Parks (F, JR, North Dakota, NCHC): 17 GP, 3 goals, 7 assists, 37 shots on goal, 10 PIM

Notes: Shayne Gostisbehere is ridiculous. May be the best player in college hockey, may not be. But he’s been impressive all year long, and after every game I look on Twitter and see people raving about how good he looked whether he scores or not. The whole thing where he shoots the puck five times per game (as a defenseman!) is also pretty awesome. It sounds like he’d almost instantly be the best skating defenseman on the Flyers — which, knowing how desperately the Flyers need a good-skating defenseman or two, does leave one to wonder whether they’ll push him to turn pro after this season.

AHL (Adirondack)

Jason Akeson (F):25 GP, 5 goals, 13 assists, 63 shots on goal
Petr Straka (F): 23 GP, 5 goals, 8 assists, 42 shots on goal
Nick Cousins (F): 24 GP, 4 goals, 6 assists, 39 shots on goal
Brandon Manning (D): 25 GP, 2 goals, 7 assists, 70 shots on goal
Mark Alt (D): 24 GP, 1 goal, 7 assists, 36 shots on goal
Marcel Noebels (F): 18 GP, 1 goal, 5 assists, 23 shots on goal
Cal Heeter (G): 16 GP, 8-8-0, .922 SV% (401 SV on 435 SA), 2 SO

Notes:I’m defining “prospect” for the Phantoms in the sense of “guys we could possibly imagine on the Flyers someday in the future”, but in case there’s anyone you’re interested in that I didn’t list, here are the team’s stats in full … admittedly, I can’t shed much light on how defensemen like Manning and Alt are playing in their own end, because admittedly I haven’t seen many of their games, so points will have to do here … not sure what’s going on with Marcel Noebels. He put up better numbers last season when he was in the AHL, but he’s been healthy scratched several times this year under Terry Murray … if another Flyers forward gets injured, Akeson has gotta be the next guy you call up, no? … Heeter seems like he’ll have good stretches and bad stretches, but as a whole the results are pretty nice. If he keeps that up, I imagine the Flyers will have him compete with Stolarz in the AHL next year — or they could give him a chance at a backup job in the NHL.

American junior

Frederic Larsson (D, Youngstown, USHL): 22 GP, 1 goal, 4 assists, 53 PIM, 15 shots on goal
Terrance Amorosa (D, Sioux City, USHL): 21 GP, 7 assists, 6 PIM, 22 shots on goal
David Drake (D, Des Moines, USHL): 22 GP, 2 assists, 7 shots on goal

Merrick Madsen (G, Minot, NAHL): 10 GP, 5-5-0, .904 save percentage (264 saves on 292 shots)

Notes: I don’t have any. It’s the USHL and NAHL, guys.

***

Some other odds and ends:

* As mentioned above, the Flyers will likely have five players in the World Junior Championships in late December/early January: Scott Laughton and Taylor Leier (Canada), Anthony Stolarz (USA), Robert Hagg (Sweden), and Valeri Vasiliev (Russia). Nice to see good representation there.

* If you were wondering, here’s the current status of each of the Flyers’ draft picks of the past three seasons:

Boy, the first few picks of the 2012 draft are looking good right now.

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