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Quick Hits: Flyers Acquire Rizzo's Rights, TIFH |
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Quick Hits: August 10, 2023
1) On Wednesday, the Flyers acquired the rights to 22-year-old center Massimo Rizzo from the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for the NHL signing rights to 26-year-old Czech winger David Kase. The Flyers also acquired a 2025 fifth-round draft pick.
Rizzo, a late-blooming collegiate standout at the University of Denver, was originally slated to be part of a trade for defenseman Tony DeAngelo before the NHL nixed the deal due to salary cap circumvention concerns. The Flyers eventually bought out DeAngelo's contract and the player signed with the Hurricanes as an unrestricted free agent.
Last week, premature reports of a Rizzo-for-Kase trade surfaced. Finally, the deal went down on Aug. 9.
Rizzo is a skilled offensive player, which he's demonstrated both at the Canadian Junior A level in the BCHL and over his two collegiate seasons to date at Denver. He sees the ice well, has a deft passing touch and good hands around the slot.
As a 20-year-old NCAA freshman in 2021-22 (12 goals, 36 points in 39 games), Rizzo was a teammate of current Flyers prospect Bobby Brink. This past season, Rizzo produced 17 goals, 29 assists and 46 points in 38 games.
The knock on Rizzo as an NHL prospect is the dreaded combination of being just an average skater with a smallish frame (5-foot-10, 180 pounds). "He has AHL feet" is a common refrain among some in the scouting end of the hockey business. Rizzo is not the first skilled player whose prospect stock has been lowered by the skating/size combo, and he won't be the last. However, there have been players who've overcome this hurdle through superior hockey sense and work ethic. The fact that the Flyers found an alternative route to acquire Rizzo's rights demontrates that some in the organization are sufficiently high on him to believe he could be effective as a pro.
Rizzo is undecided about whether to turn pro in 2023-24. If he signs an entry-level contract with the Flyers, he'll likely be assigned to the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms and try to work his way up from there. He also has the option of playing his junior year at Denver.
The Hurricanes originally drafted Rizzo in the seventh round (216th overall) of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. He played two additional BCHL seasons with the Penticton Vees and Coquitlam Express before heading to Denver as a 20-year-old freshman.
Some may recall that defenseman Wyatt Kalynuk was drafted by the Flyers in the seventh round in 2016 (196th overall), remained in the USHL and then debuted in the NCAA for the University of Wisconsin as a 20-year-old. After his junior season, Kalynuk decided to turn pro. The Flyers were interested in signing their draftee, but other clubs had interest, too. Kalynuk opted to become a free agent and signed with the Chicago Blackhawks. The blueliner played in 21 NHL games in 2020-21 and five games in 2021-22, while splitting time between the NHL and AHL levels. Ultimately, Kalynuk didn't click sufficiently to hold an NHL job and played exclusively in the AHL in 2022-23 as his NHL rights bounced from Chicago to the Vancouver Canucks and then briefly to the New York Rangers. Last month, Kalynuk signed as a UFA with the St. Louis Blues. Now 26, he is likely ticketed for the AHL's Springfield Thunderbirds in 2023-24 but he'll try to make another push for a new NHL opportunity.
I bring up Kalynuk not as a playing comparison for Rizzo -- they play different positions -- but as someone who falls under the same initial NHL signing rules after playing college hockey, rather than someone who was a true freshman as an 18-year-old ala Cutter Gauthier.
In the meantime, it remains to be seen if Kase remains in Europe or tries to take another kick at the can in North American pro hockey. After he was initially drafted by the Flyers in the fifth round (128th overall) of the 2015 Entry Draft, Kase was a favorite of former Flyers general manager Ron Hextall and assistant general manager Chris Pryor.
Speedy and skilled, Kase was small and physically immature. He attended the NHL Draft Combine and finished last or almost last in most of the physical testing categories. However, he completed all of the tasks and the Flyers were impressed by his moxie and can-do attitude.
The Flyers brought Kase over to North America in 2018-19, hoping that he could develop into a high-energy, spunky utility NHL player who could be plugged into various spots in the lineup as needed. Kase became a very well-liked player on the Phantoms for his work ethic and his willingness to ask questions and learn from mistakes. His English was still halting upon his arrival but the personable young man improved rapidly enough to where he was soon comfortable enough to do interviews on his own.
When he didn't understand a key word in a question, Kase would ask the speaker to repeat it slowly. Often, after getting the gist well enough to reply, he'd repeat the word and try to commit it to memory. David always came to the rink with a smile on his face and his sheer enthusiasm for playing the game was obvious. Those traits made him someone for whom it was easy to root.
Kase got an NHL opportunity with the Flyers in December 2019. It was a time of very mixed emotions that coincided with Oskar Lindblom's cancer diagnosis. On Dec. 19, 2019, Kase's parents came from Czechia to Philadelphia to see the Flyers play against the Anaheim Ducks. David's older brother, Ondrej, was playing for the Ducks at the time. The Flyers won the game, 4-1. and the younger Kase brother scored his first (and only) NHL goal. The next day, David's folks attended the Flyers' practice in Voorhees and he took them out for lunch afterwards. He was still beaming.
While the Kase family was in town, so was Oskar Lindblom's dad. He'd traveled from Sweden to support his son after the terrifying news of Oskar's diagnosis with Ewing's sarcoma, which would require rib removal surgery and chemotherapy. He would start treatments very shortly thereafter. Thankfully, Lindblom's condition was caught in the early stages. He underwent successful treatment and now lives cancer-free.
David Kase's big night was not the hoped-for start of a career as an NHL regular or semi-regular. He soon returned to the AHL and the NHL Taxi Squad during the Covid pandemic, where he spent most of his remaining career in the Flyers organization apart from a one-game appearance the next season as a fourth-line fill-in against the New York Rangers.
Following the shortened 2020-21 season, Kase returned to Czechia. The Flyers tendered him a qualifying offer as a restricted free agent to retain his NHL rights, although his game had not progressed as initially hoped to a level where he was viable in the NHL as more than a short-term fill-in. At the AHL level, he was more on the lower end of being a middle-six option. He was competitive and made subtly nice plays but lacked sufficient consistency.
Ondrej Kase finished last season the Hurricanes. The 27-year-old veteran of 257 NHL games signed a contract for 2023-24 with Czech team HC Litvinov, where he and David will be teammates this coming season.
2) Today in Flyers History: August 10
* 1970: The Flyers loan the contract of Luc Dufour to the Western Hockey League's Phoenix Roadrunners for the 1970-71 season. Dufour had been a high scoring AHL player for the Quebec Aces under Vic Stasiuk, including a 37-goal season for the eventual Calder Cup finalists in 1968-69, but had a down season in 1969-70 and was not in the Flyers' plans.
* 1977: Recently retired as a longtime NHL defenseman, Pat Quinn launches a coaching career by joining the Flyers as an assistant coach under Fred Shero.
* 2005: The Flyers sign goalie Robert Esche, a restricted free agent, to a two-year contract extension.
* 2006: Flyers Hall of Fame defenseman Eric Desjardins announces his retirement.
* 2015: The Flyers sign veteran unrestricted free agent checking forward Chris Porter to a one-year contract. During the preseason, Porter would be claimed off waivers from the Flyers by Chuck Fletcher's Minnesota Wild.
3) August 10 Flyers Alumni birthdays: Jesse Boulerice (1978), Sam Gagner (1989), Greg Hawgood (1968).
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