Flyers hopeful Wade Allison evokes memories of Scott Hartnell
Like the former Flyer, there is an engaging openness to Allison that borders on flaky.
He thinks of himself as a cross between Calgary's Troy Brouwer and former Flyer Jeff Carter, and maybe Wade Allison will someday be close to such a hybrid. For now, though, whether he's chugging through bodies on the ice or answering questions as if he's late for a meeting, it's impossible not to conjure up the younger image of another former Flyer:
Scott Hartnell.
There were times during Hartnell's seven seasons with the Flyers when you thought he might evolve into another Tim Kerr, pumping in goals from the crease, rumbling down the boards as players bounced off him to create opportunities. There would be streaks of goals, a 2011-12 season in which he scored 37 goals and had 67 points and earned that big contract that he could never quite live up to. There were hits, there were fights, and of course, his awkward sprawls all over the ice, triggering the "Hartnell Down'' cult that ultimately resulted in thousands of dollars going to charities.
Chosen by the Flyers in the second round of the 2016 draft (52nd overall), Wade Allison has the size, the aggression, even the reddish hair. Like Hartnell, he is a 6-foot-2 native of rough-and-tumble Western Canada (Myrtle, Manitoba) with a frame that already holds in excess of 200 pounds and can comfortably handle at least 15 pounds more. He is not without skill or skating speed, but watching him get himself going with those first three steps this week at the Skate Zone was eerily familiar to watching Hartnell start his motor in a Flyers uniform.
Like Hartnell, there is an engaging openness bordering on flaky. And like Hartnell, Allison is, thus far anyway, a yes, yes, no, no player. Once in Juniors, after swapping haymakers with an opponent until both combatants lay on the ice, Allison repeatedly patted the guy on his back as they were being separated by the referees.
That season, he scored 25 goals and 22 assists over 56 regular-season games playing for the Tri-City Storm of the USHL, and received the postseason MVP after adding 16 points over the 11 games it took to capture the Clark Cup. As a 19-year-old freshman at Western Michigan University, Allison finished with 12 goals. He was leading the team in goals on Feb. 10, then scored exactly one goal after that.
"I was thinking about it too much,'' he said at the time, but he also suffered two concussions over the final three weeks of the season.
Still, more than half of his 17 assists came during that stretch, and he was a key part of the Broncos' 14-win turnaround from the previous year that positioned them, after a 2-1 overtime victory over the University of Nebraska-Omaha in their conference championship, to win the first NCAA tournament game in school history.
Down 4-1 to Air Force with 15 minutes left, Western Michigan scored two quick goals and had all the momentum in its favor when Allison received a five-minute major for a blow to the head. Sound familiar?
The Broncos lost, 5-3, their NCAA winless streak intact.
"I cost my team that game,'' Allison, 19, said the other day. "I would like to go back and redo it. It's something I'm going to remember for sure. And something I'm never going to let happen again.''
And maybe he won't. Maybe he will outgrow the likeness to Hartnell, settle down into a yes, yes, yes player only, making the heady plays without the head-scratching ones.
There's just one problem with that theory. History.
"My dad was a huge fan of the Broad Street Bullies growing up,'' Allison said. "So he always kind of installed in me the 'Hey, be tough out there. Be strong.'
" Playing for the Flyers has always been my dream."