(Photo: Kate Frese)
By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 
The Flyers rookies took the ice to open rookie camp on Monday morning with several big name prospects in attendance. That included 2017 first-round pick Morgan Frost, one of the team’s top forward prospects.
Frost was a standout on Day 1 of rookie camp, showing off his speed. Frost’s speed was easily ahead of the rest of his teammates at camp. Frost’s speed, skill and hockey sense is highly-regarded around juniors and Frost’s raw talent gives him a lot of potential. Frost got to experience the professional speed of the game in his brief time in the AHL last season during the Phantoms playoff run, though he never got into a game. It was still a worthwhile lesson for the budding prospect.
Here are a few additional notes from Day 1 of rookie camp:
- Another noticeable prospect on the first day of camp was winger Carsen Twarynski. Twarynski was one of the more physical players during development camp in June and had a clear size advantage on other prospects in camp. As rookie camp started, he looked to have actually added to his size. The former 45-goal scorer with Kelowna has a chance to be an impact player on the Phantoms this season.
- Phil Myers had a standard day on the ice, working on drills with the rest of his teammates. The more noteworthy thing with Myers isn’t what he did on the ice, but the opportunity he has as camp begins. With an injury to Andrew MacDonald, a blue line spot appears to be open. Ron Hextall noted that Myers’ season in Lehigh Valley last season, his first as a pro, gives him experience that makes him comfortable in using Myers at the NHL level. Hextall added that T.J. Brennan and Reece Willcox as possibilities as well to fill in for MacDonald.
- German Rubtsov did not practice on Monday. No reason was officially given, but he was seen in the locker room in workout gear after practice.
- Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol will be behind the bench for the prospect game against the Islanders on Wednesday evening. Last season, Phantoms head coach Scott Gordon coached the rookie game.
- It’s early to speculate lines for Wednesday’s game, but Mikhail Vorobyev centered Oskar Lindblom and Connor Bunnaman on one line. Morgan Frost centered Isaac Ratcliffe and Maksim Sushko on another.
- The Flyers have five prospects attending rookie camp on amateur tryouts — forwards Mitchell Balmas and Hunter Holmes, defensemen Bradley Lalonde and Yegor Zamula and goaltender Liam Hughes. It’s a fairly large number given the size of the Flyers prospect pool. A big reason for this is that all college and European prospects cannot participate in NHL camps. The Flyers have 10 college prospects and nine European prospects in the system. The five ATOs serve two purposes, more players on the rookie camp roster and an extended look at these prospects.
- Away from the rookies, there was a welcome sight on the other rink at Flyers Skate Zone in Voorhees. Sean Couturier was back on the ice testing his knee that was injured during the offseason about a month before training camp began. Couturier noted that the injury wasn’t serious and the timeline of four-to-six weeks for recovery was more conservative to allow for full recovery. If it was an in-season injury, he could have returned by now. Couturier was wearing a knee brace, but stated to the media that there were no ill effects on the knee from his workout on Monday.
- In addition to Couturier skating, a number of Flyers veterans are in Voorhees and were on the ice four days before training camp officially begins.
- Hextall said that MacDonald’s injury happened about 10 days ago, but tests just came back this weekend. MacDonald’s six-week timeline to return is from Sunday’s announcement.
Flyers rookie camp continues with an 11 a.m. on-ice session on Tuesday. The practice is free and open to the public.
