General Manager Daniel Brière has announced that the Philadelphia Flyers have officially signed defenseman Hunter McDonald to a two-year entry level contract that is set to begin in 2024-25.
McDonald will remain with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the AHL for the rest of the 2023-24 season on an Amateur Try-Out (ATO), where he’s already appeared in 9 games.
The 21-year-old, Fairport, New York native stands in at 6’4” and 220 pounds and was drafted in the 6th round of the 2022 NHL Entry Draft. Shortly after being fired by the Flyers, Chuck Fletcher took to Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek’s podcast and declared McDonald as a hidden gem and a prospect he was very keen on seeing develop.
“A couple players I’m more curious about…one was Bobby Brink, a player we took in 2019 in the second round, we thought he might go late first but we traded a few picks up to get him. Bobby was coming off a great college season two years ago and then he had surgery, missed a lot of time, think he started playing decent at the end. He’s a young man that isn’t the biggest guy or isn’t the fastest guy so there some knocks on him that way but he has that passion and that hockey sense and that skill.
“Another later pick, a kid named Hunter McDonald, who was a freshman, drafted as a 20-year in the sixth round, played as a freshman last year at Northeastern, and I thought he was one of the top players in Hockey East as a freshman, big strong, heavy, rangy defenseman, likes to get up in the play and I think he will turn into a really good pro player and I’m curious to see how he develops and could be a really great find from our scouts.”
McDonald spent his draft year split between the Omaha Lancers and the Chicago Steel of the USHL where he combined for 14 points in 54 games. He then spent the last 2 seasons at Northeastern University where he accumulated 20 points and 88 PIM in 58 games, while also recording the second-most blocks on the team this past season with 52.
McDonald then made his professional hockey debut with the Phantoms on the 22nd of March and has since tallied 2 assists and 10 PIM in 9 contests.
He is the second member of the 2022 Flyers draft class that has made an appearance at the professional level, alongside seventh-round pick Alexis Gendron. Cutter Gauthier was selected in the first round, Devin Kaplan in the third round, Alex Bump in the fifth round, and Santeri Sulku was taken 23 selections before Gendron in the seventh round.
