Alex Bump has quickly worked his way to the front of every Flyers fan’s mind. The Western Michigan Bronco has been the driving force of his college club all season long and now, he is preparing to take on Boston University Saturday night for the NCAA national championship.
The 21-year-old left winger earned his way there through nine shots on goal — unfortunately zero points earned — Thursday night in the Frozen Four semifinal to beat down the reigning champions, David Carle’s Denver Pioneers. He covered every single inch of the ice surface playing well both offensively and defensively, just as he has been doing all season long.
Of course, this gets every single person that cares about the Philadelphia Flyers extremely excited about his potential in the NHL. A winger that has scored over a point per game in college but is also known for his defensive acumen as well is something that almost every single big-league organization covets. And as soon as Saturday night’s national championship game is done, with Bump being crowned a champion or a runner-up, he will surely be putting pen to paper as quickly as possible and making the leap to professional hockey.
There is still a question that we won’t know the answer to until he formally signs: Is Bump heading to the NHL right away, or will he be heading to Allentown and helping the Lehigh Valley Phantoms’ playoff push? We do have to assume that there won’t be an amateur try-out and Bump will sign his full three-year, entry-level contract that starts this season, making him a restricted free agent in 2027. The try-out business is typically held out for players of lower caliber than someone who led his team to a national championship game and is highly regarded within the NHL organization.
If Bump heads to the Flyers as soon as possible, we can’t envision him making his NHL debut less than 24 hours after playing in the biggest game of his career so far, so that leaves next the penultimate and final game of the Flyers’ season next week as possibilities for him to play in. Two NHL games before he most likely heads to Allentown to go and play in the Phantoms’ top six to go help them out with a game or two before they go to the playoffs — that seems like the most realistic path considering how high internally the Flyers seem to be on Bump. One thing to note is that if Bump plays for the Flyers, he will be ineligible to play in the AHL playoffs.
So, if this whole scenario and Bump’s next couple of weeks pans out like this, when he’s with the Flyers, where could he realistically play? It will be up to interim head coach Brad Shaw to figure out how to put him in his lineup, but it could be fairly simple.
With the Flyers recently demoting Rodrigo Abols back down to the Phantoms, they have exactly 12 healthy forwards on the roster. That includes Nic Deslauriers, of course. The 34-year-old fourth liner is the obvious choice to be a healthy scratch as Bump comes in and barring some sort of French-Canadian blackmail, he will be up in the press box if the young winger comes to the NHL.
Now, what about the specific lines? This would of course be up to Shaw and his staff, and we can only ponder about some potential burgeoning chemistries forming in the final two games of the season between Bump and some hypothetical new linemates. But what are some options we have ahead of us?
The conservative placement
With Deslauriers coming out, there is an opening on the fourth line next to newcomer Karsen Dorwart and Garnet Hathaway. Would a simple swap and keeping everything else the same be extremely boring and having Bump’s first two games in the NHL combine for under 20 minutes of ice time be disappointing? Yeah, certainly, but it could be the most realistic and easy to think about.
One step further into that is just a re-shuffle of the bottom six. The Flyers’ current third line is the trio of Jakob Pelletier, Ryan Poehling, and Owen Tippett. Three players that have certainly earned their placement together and deserve the opportunity they have. Pelletier has looked excellent since being removed from the fourth line and after John Tortorella’s firing. Ryan Poehling is suddenly the Flyers’ top offensive contributor with a million goals on this recent hot streak. Owen Tippett is only down on the third line because other wingers are playing better and deserve higher spots in the lineup, but he cannot go any lower.
If the Flyers want to give Bump more of a role than just as Deslauriers’s replacement on the fourth line, then he naturally would be bumping (sorry for the pun) Pelletier back down to the fourth line. It wouldn’t be the best thing to do to a player that probably deserves more than that treatment, but the Flyers kind of know already what Pelletier can be relied upon for. No questions about Bump’s readiness for the NHL would be fully answered to the best of their ability (since it is such a small sample size) with a freshly signed college free agent and fourth-line staple as his linemates.
Plus, Bump’s hypothetical steadiness on the wing could be very exciting with the speed of both Poehling and Tippett and it might be something to look out for next season.
But what if the Flyers want to just throw Bump in the deep end and see if he can swim?
Giving Bump the big opportunity
Travis Konecny, Sean Couturier, and Matvei Michkov have looked great together. It’s taking all the most talented players at their positions on the Flyers roster, and smashing them together in hopes that it works out; which it largely has. The smarts of Couturier, Konecny’s tenaciousness, and Michkov’s overall elite skill have worked wonderfully as a combination.
But if the Flyers want to find some things out, then maybe they need to give Bump the best opportunity to produce some points and shoot the puck as much as we know he can. And that would be with Couturier as his center and either Michkov or Konecny on the other side. It would certainly put more pressure on Bump to do something during these couple of games, but again, if he fell flat next to bottom-six forwards we still wouldn’t feel great, this gives him the chance to do more with more minutes and even potentially being on one of the power-play units.
Most fans would just want to see this to see this, but we also can’t see the Flyers just willingly handing over such an opportunity to a newcomer, over some of the other wingers on this team.
Moving from something concrete to experiment
That leaves with one other line Bump could be added to. Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink on the wing and Noah Cates down the middle has been one of the Flyers’ most consistent lines ever since they have been put together. Through 530 minutes together, the Flyers have earned 57.89 percent of goals scored, 50.32 percent of the shots on goal, 50.32 percent of the shot attempts, and a remarkable 58.43 percent of the expected goals share, when that trio is on the ice. As a team preparing for the upcoming draft lottery, to have that sort of control coming from a group of three young players is impressive.
So, why not just break them up for a bit? We know that they work well together. It is an option that whoever the next head coach is, can return to whenever they want. They control play and make the Flyers a better team. With Bump’s addition, this is all about answering some questions and doing some experiments to prepare for next season.
Tyson Foerster’s recent hat trick could be a reason to just see how he can work with some more traditional talent. Why not, if they are doing a little bit of a shuffle to try out things, put Foerster up with Couturier and Michkov as some sort of reward? And then Bump just slides in next to Cates and Brink and creates a little bit of a possession-control line with three dudes who can more than handle their own in all three zones and can shoot the puck.
Would a more wholehearted re-shuffle that looks like this, be all that bad?
Tyson Foerster — Sean Couturier — Matvei Michkov
Alex Bump — Noah Cates — Bobby Brink
Owen Tippett — Ryan Poehling — Travis Konecny
Jakob Pelletier — Karsen Dorwart — Garnet Hathaway
It might be a little bit uncomfortable heading into the offseason, but it would at least be something new we could look forward to seeing as we all hope for the result to not go the Flyers’ way in the final games.
Now, we’re just left wondering what they will do. And after doing this little thought experiment, we just know that Bump will head down to the Phantoms and we’ll do the AHL version of this all over again.