Will the Flyers take a shot on Trevor Connelly?

Breaking onto the Draft Board in the 23rd spot is perhaps the most divisive player in this potential first round group. A highly skilled winger with heaps of potential, he was described by one scout as having “top 10 skill but bottom 10 character.” And in that, as the kids say, there is a lot to unpack. Let’s get right into it.

Pre-draft rankings

No. 11 by Bob McKenzie (TSN)
No. 14 by Elite Prospects
No. 12 by FC Hockey
No. 17 by Scott Wheeler (The Athletic)

Statistics

What’s there to like?

What’s most immediately attractive about Connelly’s profile as a player is the offense he brings. In his draft year, and his second season in the USHL, he took a huge step forward, scoring at a rate of a point and a half per game, and finished the season as the second highest points getter in the whole of the league (finishing three points ahead of Michael Hage in Chicago, who we talked about last week).

Connelly’s offensive game is, in short, pretty remarkable. He’s a creative playmaker with a strong vision of the ice, and a real nose for finding his teammates with passes through difficult seams, which opens up a lot in the way of ultimately creating dangerous scoring chances. His own individual offense pops as well, and while he doesn’t have a positively booming shot, it’s still an effective one — accurate and quickly off his stick.

While he’s a player that clearly likes to have the puck (sometimes to his detriment), it’s not as though he’s disengaged when he doesn’t have it. Indeed, his off puck work is quite solid — he does well to create space, and he supports his teammates well on the forecheck.

He’s also been a really positive impact for his team in transition, as he’s often been leaned upon to be something of The Guy for them when it comes to transitioning the puck up-ice, and he’s really taken that role and run with it. There’s real poise to his game in this area, and his elusiveness as a skater combined with his confidence as a puck carrier has made for an effective combination.

On top of that, despite lacking a bit of strength, he’s still a very fast skater (and his skating will only get better once he sort of naturally fills out and adds more strength and power). He’s also quick in short bursts, which means he’s able to beat defenders one-on-one in a number of ways — he can win a straight line race, but he’s also slippery and deceptive, and has shown a strength in turning defenders inside out with that combination of quick cuts and slick stick handing. His is, in short, a highly skilled game, and one with still a good amount of growth potential, which should be exciting.

What’s not to like?

There are a few pieces of his game that we can point to as being in need of some polishing. For starters, his shot selection can be a bit questionable — rushed, at times, and at others, we see him hold onto the puck too long and skate himself into a needlessly dangerous situation. Additionally, as we mentioned above, he’s still a bit slight in his frame, so he’s missing a bit of power in his shot and skating stride as a result.

That said, the real red flags as they relate to Connelly come when we begin to look at the person off the ice. Katie Strang and Corey Pronman did a really excellent deep dive into Connelly and the questions of the due diligence teams do on these top prospects, and we’d really recommend having a look at that for a detailed history on Connelly and his whole situation, but we’ll hit the highlights here still.

In brief: many may be familiar with a recent controversy from 2022 in which Connelly was removed from his team after he posted “a picture of a teammate sitting on the floor of the children’s area of a library with building blocks assembled in the shape of a swastika,” but stretching back into his minor hockey days, there is a history of allegations of bullying (including outright physical violence), of harassment, of using racial slurs, and of other ignorant behavior. In the words of one parent to The Athletic, “He wasn’t just a troublemaker; it wasn’t just that. He was mean.”

More from Strang and Pronman:

“We determined that he’s not a hateful kid. He’s an ignorant kid. And my position is you don’t punish ignorance, you punish hatred. You educate ignorance,” said John Osei-Tutu, an NHL agent advising the Connelly family.

But Connelly’s frequent moves and short tenures at prominent hockey programs have also been flagged by teams. While it is not unusual for top prospects to move to a new program in search of a better situation, Connelly’s well-traveled career stands out. Between the ages of roughly 13 and 17, he was a member of seven different programs, and that included two stops where he stayed less than a month.

And all of this is troubling for a number of reasons. Connelly’s camp would have us believe that he is ‘mostly ‘a victim of the game of telephone.'” They’ve vehemently defended him and the work he’s done to educate himself, and to serve the community, but they’ve also been quick to get on the defensive — when they heard The Athletic was working on a piece on him, they attempted to file a lawsuit against them and hired a PR firm to help back Connelly. But despite the amount of work that Connelly is said to have put in to learn and grow, this pattern of behavior has been established, and it’s serious enough that it has not only affected the perception of him as a player, but also his development, as he’s been forced to move around to so many different teams in these formative years of his career. Strang and Pronman point to another player who faced similar accusations in his junior hockey career — Tony DeAngelo, who we know well here — and pointed out that the movement from team to team was not limited to his pre-draft years, and he never played for the team that drafted him. With Connelly, the same sort of threat looms heavy.

There are players who have made mistakes, there are reclamation projects, but there are also guys who have made it clear who they are through their patterns of behavior and who will continue to struggle to find the stability in the NHL as a result. It might be too soon to say conclusively what the case is for Connelly, but we can understand a team not wanting to be the one to take a chance on drafting him and being the one to find out.

How would he fit in the Flyers’ system?

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: the Flyers might not be sorely in need of wingers to help them fill out their depth chart, but they are in need of more high skilled players to help raise the floor, if you will, of the team’s ability. And on that basis, Connelly certainly would offer that to the Flyers, there’s no doubt about that.

But the trouble is that we’re not just talking about Connelly the hockey player, but Connelly the whole package as a person. And the question of fit is not just limited to whether his position addresses a need in the depth chart, or if his style of play aligns with the one the team is playing, but also whether he fits in with the larger culture that the organization is trying to build. And this last bit is something of our sticking point. In the last year or so, the Flyers have placed a heavy emphasis on rebuilding their organization’s culture, to pull it from the somewhat toxic space it had slipped into, and as we stand here today, it seems that they’ve largely been successful. One might argue that taking on and then fixing a reclamation project type of player would be an excellent way to prove exactly how strong their reformed culture is, but to take on a player with such a well documented history of bad temper, of ignorance, feels a step too far. It’s a move that would hurt the organization not just in terms of that culture, but also in terms of the optics and public perception (which they’ve also been working so hard to repair over the last year). Simply, this is not a can of worms that they need to open.

Could the Flyers actually get him?

Obviously, this is a tough situation all around. Given Connelly’s overall talent, there’s a real chance that a team could sell itself on him being a reclamation project that they can handle, and take him somewhere in the top-10, which some pundits have argued is an appropriate place to take him, again, based on that talent level.

But with all of the other red flags and question marks around Connelly, it feels more likely that he will be available to the Flyers when the 12th pick arrives, and even when the 31st or 32nd pick arrives. Whether they will or should take him if he’s available is another question entirely, but he should be an option for them, if nothing else.

What scouts are saying

Connelly is a burner. Give him the puck in space, and he makes things happen. Some of that is skill, a lot that effectiveness rests in the details – it all depends on what’s in front of him. When confronted by a defender playing a tight gap, Connelly dictates their momentum, changing lanes and cutting across his opponents as they react; if the defence sags, he cuts inside.
EliteProspects 2024 NHL Draft Guide

Every game I see of Connelly I go through a range of emotions and thoughts. There are some truly, truly high end moments with him, and in terms of raw quickness, skill, and determination, Connelly can be right up at the top of the class at times. At other times I’ve found him a bit careless with his shot selection and pass selection. He clearly loves to have the puck on his stick, but sometimes that love goes too far. He can skate into unwinnable situations or bring puck into low scoring areas and put soft attempts on net, but the potential is tantalizing. Slot pass rates are strong, and his offensive transition numbers are great. He’s heavily relied up on with Tri-City to quarterback pucks up the ice and he does so effectively, and very often. Could he go higher than this? It’s possible. Could he slip a bit for a few different reasons? I could see that as well, but the talent is clearly there, and with some guidance, higher quality linemates, and time, there could be quite the offensive leaning winger here one day.
Will Scouch, scouching.ca

Welcome to the poll…

We’ve had a nice little run here of talking about some interesting forwards, but we’d like to mix it up soon, so here’s a defenseman. Welcome, Cole Hutson! An offensively minded defenseman looking to follow in his brother Lane’s footsteps as one of the top players in college hockey, and top prospects in the NHL.

The most productive defenseman at the NTDP over the last two years, Hutson is a highly talented offensive defenseman who doesn’t turn 18 until the day of the draft and is expected to replace his brother as BU’s power-play quarterback and play creator from the back end next season…

Cole’s got more of a physical element to his game than Lane does and plays opponents really hard so that his size is less noticeable (Lane’s plenty competitive, but Cole delivers more hits if you will), gluing himself to them in order to be as disruptive as possible and really outwardly battling along the wall. He quickly identifies second and third options, often a step ahead of opposing structures. The way he shows one thing and does another is pretty unique. His little hesitations in control into quick, decisive attacking moments grab your attention and allow him to make plays past the first layer. He has the puck on a string at times. I think he’s a better skater than his big brother was at the same age (he snakes his way through gaps in coverage so effortlessly, and his lateral agility on cuts is a major strength). He executes some beautiful stretch passes. He’s got great touch and feel on his backhand as well as his forehand. And he’s holding his own defensively for my money. His teams have been better with him out there on the back end in each of the last two seasons than without him. Some teams will question whether his game will translate and progress enough to hang at the NHL level but I’m still a big believer in the talent and like him as a late-first/second-rounder even though he might well go later than that.
Scott Wheeler, The Athletic

Close Poll

Previously on the Draft Board:

BSH 2024 Community Draft Board, No. 23: Trevor Connelly

Pre-draft rankings

Talking Points