ST. LOUIS — Skating around the Enterprise Center with his blond hair flowing out of his helmet, Flyers prospect Alex Bump potted a quick wrister from the slot as his linemate Matteo Costantini let out a big yelp.
Were they celebrating a goal like the double-overtime winner that sent Western Michigan to the NCAA regional finals? No. Was it one of his team-leading 23 tallies this season? Nope. It was instead at Western Michigan’s final practice before the university’s first-ever appearance in the Frozen Four.
While the goal came as he skated around in a white practice jersey with a black Bronco on it, it encompassed what Bump, 21, does best now, and what he will look to replicate when he suits up for the Flyers in the no-longer-distant future.
Bump is a goal scorer.
“A lot of guys are not confident in their shooting,” Flyers director of player development Riley Armstrong said. “A lot of guys don’t think they can beat a goalie, or they have to get to a certain area on the ice to be able to beat the goalie. I think Alex is a very confident shooter, he knows where to shoot the puck. He’s always known how to find the net.”
Hometown hero
Joe Pankratz remembers Bump being at the rink, even before he starred for him at Prior Lake High School. Bump’s two older brothers played hockey for the school’s longtime coach, and a young Bump — who at the age of 8 and 9, “was a good squirt”— developed a reputation as a rink rat.
“The biggest thing is, he absolutely loves hockey,” Pankratz told The Inquirer. “You can’t get him off the ice.”
It was in his hometown of Prior Lake, Minn., where Bump developed that lethal shot of his. He scored 48 goals during his senior season as the Lakers’ captain, including 12 in the section and state tournament playoffs; five came in one playoff game.
“It’s a lot of snapshots, and he protects it and hides it really well. He changes the angle on his shot. … A lot of that is he’s got amazing hands, but he has a lot of poise with the puck, so he isn’t in a rush,” Pankratz said. “He doesn’t panic with it.”
And he is a volume shooter. This season, the left-shot winger has fired 236 shots on goal with 23 goals, a 9.7% shooting percentage.
But it’s not just his shot that’s impressed the Flyers.
“He’s very elusive of checks. He’s slippery, as you would call it in hockey,” Armstrong said. “He always finds a way to get around guys, get through guys, and then when he doesn’t have the puck, he always finds a way to get open. He has a really good stick. He’s physical. He engages with and without the puck into contact, which is something that you need to play at the NHL level.”
The NHL could come as soon as the Broncos’ season ends, either Thursday against the University of Denver (5 p.m., ESPN2) or after Saturday’s national championship game (7:30 p.m., ESPN2). And it sounds like Bump will be coming with an ax to grind.
“Our guys, Brent [Flahr, assistant general manager] and [amateur scout] Shane Fukushima in Minnesota, had seen him play a lot [in high school], and they were very comfortable with him. They couldn’t believe that he had fallen this far,” Flyers general manager Danny Brière said this week.
At the time, Brière was an adviser to then-GM Chuck Fletcher. He jokes that his nephew Zaac, the team’s runner at the Montreal draft, “still claims he made the pick for us” after seeing Bump’s name high on the team’s draft board and saying they should take the Minnesotan.
Bump was eventually selected by the Flyers in the fifth round with pick No. 133 — and it lit a fire.
“He came up to the suite after. He had his brothers there, his family, and he came in and he was [ticked] off that he went so late. He felt he should have went earlier in the draft,” added Armstrong, then an assistant coach with Lehigh Valley.
“I think he’s proven a lot of people wrong, or for our sake, right.”
‘An absolute steal’
Why Bump, the 2022 USA Today High School Hockey Player of the Year, fell is irrelevant now. Just like the round he was drafted. As Flahr always says, it’s all about what you do after that matters. And what Bump, 21, has done has been impressive.
But first, Bump had to face some adversity. He played USHL hockey wrapped around his senior year but didn’t put up the biggest numbers the year after he graduated. A University of Vermont commit, he had to make a last-minute pivot when the Catamounts’ coach was fired, and found a home at Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, Mich.
“I think that we’ve seen over the last two years is that his development has seemingly gone into hyperdrive. I think he’s ahead of schedule where we thought he would be this time two years ago,” FloHockey’s prospect analyst Chris Peters told The Inquirer. “So that’s a pretty positive development, because he was good in the USHL, but he wasn’t dominant. And now this year, you could say he was one of the best players in college hockey.”
Broncos coach Pat Ferschweiler, who was a linemate at Western Michigan with Flyers president Keith Jones, and the Flyers organization work in lockstep. Armstrong speaks with the coaching staff and Bump consistently, and goes over videos with the player to make sure they are all on the same page as far as his development and making sure he is NHL-ready.
How it will translate at the NHL level is to be determined. Ferschweiler says the Flyers got “an absolute steal.” He notes Bump’s “incredible hockey sense and incredible vision,” but feels what will really separate him and “what the Flyers fans are going to love, is, he’s got incredible compete.”
“Alex does not lack for confidence,” he said. “He’s got inner belief, because he works really hard, and that’s how belief is earned. He does that every day. So he’s not a cocky kid, but he does have self-belief, which I think there’s a fine line there and he walks on the right side of it.”
A pure goal scorer, Bump does need to continue to work on his skating. But those who know him best have seen improvement. This past winter break, Bump skated with his old high school team and Pankratz noted “how much stronger, more powerful of a skater he is.”
And they all know he will put in the work because he wants to succeed.
“I don’t think he’s ever really been a passenger.” Peters said. “He’s a driver, and especially at his age, and that program, and based on what they have surrounding him, like they needed him to be that, and he’s delivered. So he’s risen to the occasion.”
The Flyers and their fans will love to hear that because maybe, just maybe, he becomes another game-changer for a team that needs more of them to take that next step.
“I really do,” Armstrong said, when asked if Bump could be that type of guy. “I think, with Matvei [Michkov] as well. … You just have to have a little bit of patience to kind of see the rebuild through and wait for these kids to get there.
“Once they do, you’re going to have a couple of game-changers sitting right in front of you.”
