The youth movement has arrived in the Lehigh Valley, and the Phantoms and Flyers alike will be better for it.
If you look back at the 2023-24 AHL season, you’d see that the Lehigh Valley Phantoms were, for the most part, unremarkable. They finished the season 32-31-9, just barely squeaking into the playoffs with a paltry point total of 73. Their two leading scorers were a 26-year olds Cooper Marody and Tanner Laczynski, closely followed, to be fair, by a 20-year old Samu Tuomaala. But outside of Tuomaala, and a 21-year old Emil Andrae, there really weren’t many young potential NHL prospects that were contributing to the Phantoms’ success.