The Flyers had a big day yesterday bringing a couple of decent undrafted prospects in defenseman Maxim Lamarche and winger Michael Raffl. Lamarche is coming from the Baie-Comeau Drakkar of the QMJHL where he played with Petr Straka, another of the Flyers free agent prospect signings. Raffl, an Austrian, was playing in Sweden with Leksands.
Lamarche had a bit of a break out season this year with Baie-Comeau. After putting up 28 points and being a -40 in his draft eligible year two seasons ago; Lamarche is coming off a monster year where he scored 43 points in 55 games and was a whopping +31. Along with his offensive production Lamarche, who is 6'2 192 lbs, is pretty physical and is pretty willing to drop the gloves and throw hands. This season he helped Baie-Comeau to a second place finish in the QMJHL losing to Memorial Cup Champions Halifax Mooseheads. The Flyers have been good at snagging late developing junior players. Last year they signed Matt Konan after his break out year in the WHL. We all know that it takes defensemen more time to develop. Maybe guys like Lamarche and Konan, who weren't sought after as 17 and 18 year olds, needed a little more time to develop in good or even great prospects. Lamarche is at least a season or two away from getting his shot at the NHL. And with the Phantoms' defense loaded with young talent it will be interesting to see how long it takes for him to find his place on the team. If he can develop like fellow undrafted junior defensemen Matt Konan and Brandon Manning we could be seeing Lamarche in a Flyers jersey a little bit down the road.
A bit closer to the NHL is Michael Raffl. The 24 year old Raffl has spent his entire career in Europe, first playing in his native Austria before making the jump to Leksands in Sweden's second league the Allsvenskan. Raffl helped Leksands to the Allsvenskan Championship as the teams leading scorer. Without the help of any lockout players (though the team did have top prospects Filip Forsberg and Jacob de la Rose) Raffl scored 24 goals and 46 points in 49 games. Raffl caught the eye of the Flyers and the rest of the NHL at the World Championships. While Raffl didn't put up great numbers (3 points in 7 games) he played well enough to get multiple NHL teams to go after him. The Flyers have dabbled in players coming out of Europe in their mid twenties before. Jiri Dopita, while he is considered a disappointment, but up pretty good numbers (27 points in 52 games) with the Flyers. Ville Leino was an MVP in Finland's SM-liiga before he was brought over by Detroit. As long as team teams expectations for Raffl aren't short term or too unrealistic like they were with Dopita he could become a key contributor. It sounds like the Flyers will give Raffl a chance to make team out of training camp. The same opportunity was given to Matt Read, a fellow 24 year old undrafted free agent, a couple of seasons ago. While Raffl may never be Matt Read, but if he works hard he could have a spot on the 3rd or 4th line this up coming season.
After what has been a slightly disappointing offseason for the Flyers (in terms of signing undrafted free agents) these two signing are a major coup for the team.
A bit of a post script, the Lamarche signing could be a signal as to who the Flyers will draft with the 11th Overall pick in the upcoming draft. While there is still a chance players like Valeri Nichushkin, Elias Lindholm, and Rasmus Ristolainen may still be on the board when it comes time for the Flyers to pick it isn't necessarily likely. One player that likely will be on the board at the 11th pick is winger Valentin Zykov. Zykov played in Baie-Comeau along with Lamarche and Petr Straka. The Flyers clearly think highly of the team and they have a recent history of drafting players from teams where they currently have prospects playing. While there is still a chance one of the big players will fall; if I was a betting man I'd put my money on the Flyers drafting Zykov.
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