The Philadelphia Flyers have added another young defensive prospect to the mix via the Ivan Provorov trade.
Besides the draft capital that the Flyers received when dealing Provorov, Kevin Connauton, and Hayden Hodgson, they managed to add to their prospect pool with the addition of 21-year-old Helge Grans.
At a solid 6’4” and 205 pounds, the Swedish defensemen out of Ljungby was drafted 35th overall by the Los Angeles Kings in the 2020 NHL Draft.
Grans played his last 2 seasons with L.A.’s AHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign, recording 8 goals and 24 assists in 115 games. After a 24-point, +7 2021-22 season, his 2022-23 season production slipped to just 9 points in 59 games, posting a -8. Hopefully he can have a bounce back season with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Grans is considered a very promising talent with raw skills that need to be refined. When evaluating the 2020 draft, ESPN’s Chris Peters had this to say about the now-Flyers prospect,
“Grans has a lot of good tools that teams search for in defensemen, including size and pretty solid passing skills. My biggest concern is his skating.”
With more on Grans’ 2020 draft profile, Alexandre Desrochers Ayotte of The Hockey Writers explained,
”Helge Grans is a big-bodied right-handed defenseman who played in Sweden’s junior league in 2019-20, putting up 27 points in as many games. He also played 21 games in the SHL, putting up three points and a plus-four differential. Grans’ positional intelligence, mobility and size will be important factors towards his development. He excels in transition and in bringing the puck to the net, important assets for taking the next step. He has the potential to make the jump to the NHL in a few seasons, after gaining more responsibility in the Swedish Elite League in 2020-21.”
Grans will not be making that jump yet. As mentioned before, it seems he will be heading to Lehigh Valley where he will be reuniting with a former teammate in Emil Andrae, as both players contributed with the Swedish national junior team. Andrae is another young blueliner that the Flyers covet, which was evident after Emil received a 3-year ELC back in March.
Building up defensive talent is a focus of the current Flyers regime, and Keith Jones made this clear when speaking with Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli.
“The blue line, to me, is the most important thing. We want to have a really advanced back end.”
With the defense as a major focus of the rebuild, the Flyers have some work to do. Adding Grans to the mix was a good risk to take in order to make Jonesy’s future advanced blue line a reality.
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