We are just a couple days into Philadelphia Flyers training camp but there is already so much going on. Matvei Michkov looks like a completely reborn hockey player that might be in for a massive season, Jett Luchanko is having a minor push to make the Flyers roster, and there is overall a giant batch of healthy competition as players fight for their own roster spots (and chirp each other a whole lot).
But beyond the players who are guaranteed NHL spots or are competing for said spots, there are a bunch of prospects trying to find their way around their first experience of what it is like being a full-time pro hockey player. Maksim Sokolovskii was just drafted months ago but the 6-foot-7 defenseman is already showing glimpses of what he can become after a few more years of development — and it looks dang good.
He’s clearly not perfect, but there are signs of life.
Sokolovskii is creating highlights at Flyers training camp
The whole thing about Sokolovskii after he was drafted 27th overall by the Flyers earlier this year, and through development camp the following week, was just how large he is and how impressive his toolset is because of the frame he is working with. All throughout those first glimpses of him wearing orange and black just days after the Flyers made the slightly controversial decision to select him with their first pick of the 2026 NHL Draft, we were pretty blown away by his fluid skating around the ice and some in-tight puckhandling. The 18-year-old really showed just why some scouts were really high on him and took the big swing to maybe get a big man with soft skills — an extremely rare commodity in the NHL.
But to start his first NHL training camp, Sokolovskii had a big opportunity ahead of him to show off more of that but instead of against his fellow prospects, up against bona fide NHL players. We knew he could maybe skirt around some fellow teenager who might take even longer than he will to reach his potential, but what about someone that was just on the Flyers roster and playing the biggest games of their career in the playoffs?
Well, Sokolovskii managed to show off some of his stopping power against young winger Alex Bump, in a clip captured by NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jordan Hall.
While it is maybe the most simple play that Sokolovskii can make, it’s a good sign that he was fairly aggressive defensively, and how he can cause even a player like Bump — an NCAA national champion and someone who impressed during his first stint in the NHL — to cough up the puck. And of course, Sokolovskii did what almost every NHL head coach would tell him to do and easily clear the puck out of the zone.
Maybe it’s just us being all starry-eyed at the shiny new prospect, but even for him to bounce the puck off the boards and not just mindlessly swat his stick at the puck to sent it as far down the ice as possible, was fairly smart. If that situation was in a real game scenario, Sokolovskii would have space in front of him and with his skating, could have easily had a breakaway — and he’s already shown he can score some goals against NHL goaltenders, too.
And once again, Sokolovskii also showed off some small-area skill with his big-area frame. In maybe the most impressive clip of his time with the Flyers so far, the literal teenager danced his way around an established NHL defenseman.
While working in a 5-on-2 drill to really get some quickfire offense in a situation like that (those poor defenders), Sokolovskii was at the point with possession of the puck and to keep it in the zone, pulled off some nifty moves to break free of any defensive pressure.
It might be more impressive because the clip from Nasty Knuckles’ Travis Ballinghoff is so close at ice level, but Sokolovskii really made that defender who was charging in, look like an absolute fool. And that must have been some no-name prospect, right? Some guy who is going to head back to a really bad USHL or QMJHL team; something like that?
That was Simon Benoit who the 18-year-old defenseman worked his way around. While he’s not the most skillful player, Benoit still has a total of 352 NHL games played and is so much higher than Sokolovskii on the organizational depth chart.
We can’t make strong declarations about how good a player is compared to another player based on one extremely one-sided drill at training camp, but it is interesting that Benoit represents the benchmark type of player that Sokolovskii is going to have to be better than when he is (hopefully) close to NHL-ready in a few years. Benoit, or whoever else is that veteran extra defenseman on the roster, will need to be proven as a worse option than Sokolovskii and if we are actually going off on one play, I don’t think that Benoit would be able to pull off something like that on the blue line.
Sokolovskii’s time at Flyers training camp has ended
As announced by the Flyers on Saturday afternoon, Sokolovskii was part of the first round of cuts at training camp, as a bunch of prospects went back to their respective junior teams and other, older players are going to report to Phantoms camp later. Regardless, his couple of days at his first NHL training camp was not wasted.
Sokolovskii did a whole lot to make it known just what he can do and what he’s good at, while also providing some learning moments. The plays above were of course his highlights, but he made a number of mistakes that led to other turnovers and such, but those would not be clipped and posted on social media, of course.
The 18-year-old defender is still multiple years away from turning pro, as he’s committed to the University of Maine for the 2027-28 season, but has certainly started a very pivotal developmental year on the right foot.
