SteelFlyers Football Videos
Prospect Watch: Daxon Rudolph
Photo Credit: Nathan Reiter/Daily Herald.
While the Prince Albert Raiders of the Western Hockey League may be managing to pilfer themselves a couple more wins than usual this year, with the highly talented Ryder Ritchie leading the way, it should be known that they may have just landed themselves one of the next great defenders of our time. This player is so good that, statically, when his time in Prince Albert is all said and done, he may not only find himself having surpassed the likes of former Raiders blueliners Kaiden Guhle and Josh Morrissey but one day could see his number raised to the rafters of the Art Hauser Centre alongside Dave Mason’s number four, Mike Modano’s number nine, and Dan Hodgson’s number sixteen.
Who is this player, and why do I feel so confident in his future success, you might be asking? Well, his name is Daxon Rudolph, and he is a 15-year-old right-hand shot, offensive defenseman who was recently taken by the Raiders number one overall in the 2023 WHL Prospect Draft.
While some may question why a team would ever take a defenseman with the first overall pick, I assure you this one was no mistake, for Daxon is a human highlight reel. Whether he is launching water bottle rockets with one of his twisted wristers coming in from the point, feathering a pass through an opponent’s legs to an awaiting teammate’s stick blade, or simply annihilating an oblivious adversary who chose so foolishly to try to cross over his blueline with their head down, Rudolph can simply do it all. This was made evident by his efforts last season while playing for the Northern Alberta Xtreme U15 Prep Team of the Canadian Sport School Hockey League (CSSHL), wherein the regular season, Daxon was able to finish with 17 goals and 33 assists for 50 points in only 30 games played. But, although that 1.66 points per game average from a defender may have seemed impressive, Rudolph showed that he must have ice coursing through his veins because he somehow was able to elevate his game come playoff time, scoring five goals and seven assists for 12 points in only five games played; which mind you included Daxon scoring the overtime game-winner that bested the likes of Jarome Iginla’s son Joe and the rest of the RHA Kelowna to win them the CSSHL U15 Western Championship. But that’s not all. While you are still sitting there and trying to comprehend how a defender can average 2.40 points per game in the playoffs, let me also inform you that Rudolph was named an Alberta Cup All-Star and the CSSHL’s Top Defender last season.
That takes us to this year, where Daxon has been able to elevate his game once again, this time by dressing for Northern Alberta’s U18 Team. Through just five games played versus older and tougher competition this season, Rudolph has averaged 2.00 points per game, netting six goals and four assists for ten points.
With all this being said, while Daxon may not be due to be drafted by an NHL team until the 2026 Entry Draft, it should go without saying that you guys should keep a close on this young man, seeing that he will only get better from here.
Thanks to a “Series of Unfortunate Events,” the Flyers have Found a Lineup that Works
Though the Flyers have played only seven games thus far, management and the teams’ Head Coach, John Tortorella, have had to make some major decisions regarding this lineup.
To start. The first test was when the injury bug hit the Flyers blueline. This came in the way of Ramus Ristolainen and the newly acquired Marc Staal. The only difference between the two is while Staal’s veteran presence and insightful on-ice coaching tips to the team’s youth in between the whistles will be missed after he suffered an upper-body injury during last week’s game against the Oilers, sadly the same cannot be said for Ristolainen who currently holds a career -176 average. Rasmus, who recently suffered a setback after being thought to be nearing a return to the lineup, has been pleasantly replaced by some of the team’s top budding defensive prospects. That’s right, guys like Egor Zamula (who is a +5 right now) and rookie Emil Andre have made the most out of their increased roles with the Flyers, and it has resulted in the team being not only able to pull out some impressive wins but compete to the final minutes of a game against even the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Vegas Golden Knights.
In fact, without Ristolainen in the lineup, the team has looked more defensively responsible than they have in years. Collectively working together as a solid unit now, the Flyers defense this season has been able to create far fewer turnovers, has taken fewer penalties, and is managing to drastically lower the shot attempts a night that Carter Hart has had to face. Furthermore, as a direct result of that, this season, Hart has been able to recently record a shutout against the Canucks and bring down his overall goals-against average to a very respectable 2.19 as well as increase his save percentage to .924. Need more proof? How about we check on how Ristolainens’ old defensive partner, Travis Sanheim, has been doing? Since being freed of the burden of having to double back to cover for Rasmus’s mistakes, Sanheim has been able to turn it up a notch offensively, netting eight points in seven games played this season and is currently a +2 on the year instead of the -5, he finished with last season while playing with Ristolainen.
But that’s not the only recent event contributing to this team’s success. Tortorella’s decision to bench Morgan Frost in lieu of hungrier, less experienced players like Bobby Brink and Tyson Foerster has allowed the Flyers to be able to dress possibly the best group of shut-down dot dwellers (centers) of any team in the NHL this season. Combined, Sean Couturier, Scott Laughton, Noah Cates, and Ryan Poehling are a +8 this year. To top that off, we all were witnesses to them each playing a significant role in the Flyers being able to recently hold the likes of both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl (who scored a combined 281 points last season), scoreless in their recent game against them on the 19th.
It just so happens that this writer suggested this very switcheroo with the centers weeks ago in an article I provided a link to below.
While the Frost faithful are still up in arms here in Philly about Morgan being left out in the cold by Tortorella, they fail to realize that his stats from last year were inflated. Yes, we all know he scored 19 goals and 46 points last season, but what his super fans won’t admit to is those point totals were mainly derived from his increased playing time due to Couturier being out for the season because of injury). But with Coots’ injuries now being hopefully a thing of the past, the question now becomes, would Frost be able to offer the same kind of point production playing on a lesser line? Probably not! Plus, despite Morgan finishing the season with 46 points, he still ended up being a -12 last season and is now a -27 for his career, which means, in theory, everything he did last season offensively was for not because when he was on the ice, he couldn’t prevent the other team from scoring more goals than his.
So, when you pair those “series of unfortunate events” with the Flyers’ decision to trade away Ivan Provorov, who ranked ninth in the league in turnovers last year, as well as buying out Tony DeAngelo this past off-season, who was a team worse -27 during the 22-23 campaign, you can start to see that this new regime of President of Hockey Ops. Keith Jones, General Manager Danny Briere, and Head Coach John Tortorella may just know what they’re doing when it comes to constructing a roster.
Torts has the Flyers off to a Good Start, but the True Test May be Right Around the Corner
Let’s face it: with how the Flyers have finished over the course of the last couple of seasons, I think it would be safe to say that most fans were cautiously optimistic at best about the start of this season, from deciding to draft the impressive Matvei Michkov (who is signed for three more years in the KHL) instead of taking a safer pick like Ryan Leonard or Zach Benson, to trading away Ivan Provorov, and settling for signing some underrated veterans in Marc Staal, Garnet Hathaway, and Ryan Poehling. To the team relying heavily on the return of the injured Sean Couturier and Cam Atkinson, it was clear that the newly hired Flyers’ brass was not afraid to roll the dice and take risks when reconstructing this roster. But as proved evident by the Flyers’ first couple of games, these choices, combined with a few of the Flyers ready prospects Bobby Brink, Tyson Foerster, and Egor Zamula, have somehow surprised even their biggest skeptic, yours truly!
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. While I’ll admit I like the addition of a calming veteran presence such as Staal to a relatively youthful and inexperienced blue line, as well as the creation of what I believe to be one of the most formidable 4th lines in the entire NHL right now. I think for the time being, I will just save my overwhelming excitement for when I tune into the next Phillies postseason game, and here’s why.
While the Flyers were able to win two out of the first three games they played this season, they did so against less-than-formable opponents. Let’s start with game one versus the Columbus Blue Jackets. Philadelphia was able to win the game 4-2, and the players that should have been expected to lead the way did, with Konecny scoring two goals and Atkinson netting one. All the while, players like Coots, Laughton, and Farabee were able to get in on the action as well. But while we should be happy, they won, let’s not get too excited. The Blue Jackets finished dead last in the Eastern Conference last season, not to mention that they finished the year tied for second to last in the entire league, with them only managing to obtain 59 points for the year. In comparison, while our team was terrible, the Flyers at least managed to pile up 75 points on the season.
Moving on, as we begin to analyze the Flyers’ second game of the year against the Ottawa Senators, you can see why I am a little apprehensive about signing up to help plan for the Flyers Stanley Cup parade route this year after just one game played. In this contest last Saturday, Philadelphia found themselves having to line up against a little better opponent in the form of the Ottawa Senators. A team that, while trending in the right direction, still managed to find themselves being eliminated from any hopes of the playoffs last year after finishing the season in the eleventh spot in the Eastern Conference with only 86 points to their credit. Despite all that, the Senators still came out on top this past weekend, besting the Flyers by a score of 5-2. And if that wasn’t bad enough to add insult to injury, long-time Flyer Claude Giroux and the rest of his cronies wearing the red and black were able to do so with their backup goaltender Anton Forsberg in net.
https://www.nhl.com/stories/150482-20231014-Ottawa-Senators-vs-Philadelphia-Flyers.html
Now, for their latest game against the Vancouver Canucks that took place just yesterday on the 17th. I have to admit; after watching this game, I have to give this team some credit because it has been a very long time since I have seen the Flyers play such an up-tempo game. That second period especially, because they were relentless in their efforts. With the offense recording shot after shot and the defense playing so well, I swear Carter Hart could have taken a mid-game nap and still wound up with a shutout. This was the case because the Flyers had players like the elusive Bobby Brink busy on the other end, creating chance after chance in and around the net like he was able to do so quite frequently when attending college at the University of Denver, where he led the nation back in the 2021-2022 season scoring 57 points in 41 games played. But even though they were able to dominate the Canucks 2-0 yesterday, I worry that even though the great John Tortorella seems to have his team whipped into shape so early into the season, the likelihood of them being able to maintain this level of play against any real competition without having any true superstar of their own on the roster right now is slim to none. Case in point, like the two previous teams we discussed in this article, Vancouver was not a playoff team last season. Like the Senators, they finished in the eleventh seed in their respective conference last season.
This is far off the pace of the likes of the teams the Flyers will be forced to face over the next few weeks. Yes, over the next 14 days, I believe we will begin to get a more accurate depiction of what kind of team we are dealing with here. Because during that time, the Flyers will have to line up against playoff-caliber teams like Connor McDavids’ Edmonton Oilers, the Dallas Stars, the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Las Vegas Golden Knights, the Minnesota Wild, and the Carolina Hurricanes.
In closing, will these next few weeks really prove to make or break the Flyers season? No, but it should allow us to view just how far this team has come from last year and how far they still have to go to be considered a real contender in this ultra-competitive league again. There’s no doubt that guys like Cutter Gauthier and Matvei Michkov will be nice additions to this team’s offense whenever they arrive, but I believe there is still so much more the team can do while they are forced to wait. So, in saying that, don’t be surprised or discouraged when this team goes through all sorts of trials and tribulations again this season, including possibly having to do some more subtraction to obtain more future assets while they are still rebuilding. Help is on the way; it will just take time. The only difference from the previous times we have heard this type of propaganda from ownership is now that this team is under the direction of Keith Jones and Danny Briere. I finally believe this to be true.