Jett Luchanko is doing it again.
For the third straight year, the Flyers prospect is trying to force his way onto the opening night roster out of training camp, and once more he’s making himself hard to ignore. Philadelphia has seen this movie before: a young center arrives without a clear lane, uses his speed and energy to get noticed, and suddenly the coaching staff has a real decision to make.
Luchanko was the 13th overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft after the Flyers traded down to land him. He came into camp that year as a long shot, but John Tortorella liked what he saw and put him on the opening night roster anyway because of his pace and the team’s thin center depth. Luchanko lasted four games with the Flyers before going back to the OHL, though Tortorella may have preferred to keep him around longer.
He repeated the trick last season under first-year coach Rick Tocchet. Again, he made the roster.
Again, he played four games. And this time the stat line was quiet: no points, two penalty minutes, and a minus-3 rating.
The OHL season that followed was uneven. Luchanko posted 17 points, all but two of them assists, in 11 games while serving as captain of the Guelph Storm. After that, he was traded to the Brantford Bulldogs and finished with 33 points in 42 games across the regular season and playoffs combined.
Now the setup is different. The Flyers can assign him to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the AHL to begin the season and bring him up whenever they want. They no longer need to keep him on the NHL roster just to avoid losing flexibility.
Even with that option available, Luchanko is making a case to stick around.
He’s gotten a look early in camp between Travis Konecny and Porter Martone, and while those line combinations shouldn’t be taken as gospel, it’s at least a sign that the Flyers are giving him a real chance to show what he can do. That trio could make sense at the NHL level now or later.
One sequence on Thursday stood out enough to catch attention from NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jordan Hall, who highlighted a strong shift that ended with Luchanko finishing the play in style.
Fantastic work this whole sequence by Jett Luchanko, who finishes with nice move. But the battle and position was just as impressive. pic.twitter.com/MaNGOi5Iho
- Jordan Hall (@JHallNBCS) September 17, 2026
Hall later asked Tocchet about the play, and the coach pointed to the bigger picture.
“For me, it’s just the growth of him. I think if he’s stacking some good days together, that’s what he’s got to do.
Whether he makes the team or not, that’s long-term, like who knows,” Tocchet said. “He’s putting good days together.”
That growth matters because Luchanko’s offensive ceiling has been one of the questions around him. In eight NHL games, he has four shots on goal, including just one lat season.
Tocchet said he’s seeing a more assertive player this year, especially when the puck is on Luchanko’s stick in transition.
“Just from last year to this year, we did a lot of rush drills today, and he shot the puck. He went in with his speed, gained the middle,” Tocchet said.
“Before, he would defer, give it to the winger. You’re going from a grade A shot from a grade B when you pass it, and he was shooting it, so that was a good sign.
“In that bull in the ring drill we do, the two on two, he took it to the net and had a hell of a goal, top-shelf, I think. Those are the things that I want him to do.
I want him to be a high-wire act, go for it. Don’t be so cautious.
That goal, he wasn’t cautious. That was a hell of a goal.”
The path still isn’t wide open. Philadelphia’s center group looks crowded with Trevor Zegras, Christian Dvorak, Noah Cates, and Sean Couturier as the most obvious names to start the season down the middle. Denver Barkey and Noel Acciari can also slide there, and Luchanko is part of that mix too.
Still, the door isn’t shut. He didn’t have an easy route to the roster in the past, either, and that didn’t stop him from making the team twice before.
Training camp is still rolling, and the shortened preseason will give him more chances to prove this is different. For now, Jett Luchanko has done exactly what he needed to do: make the Flyers keep watching.
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