‘Hardworking center’ Heikki Ruohonen is making a strong impression at Flyers development camp

Heikki Ruohonen’s eyes lit up immediately.

Asked about skating alongside fellow Finn Sami Kapanen, the United States Hockey League-bound center couldn’t contain his excitement: “Really good,” Ruohonen said, before adding with a big grin, “[We] talked some Finnish.”

Kapanen, who works in the Flyers front office in player development and is a pro scout, has been impressed by his fellow countryman.

“He’s a hardworking center, good two-way game,” Kapanen told The Inquirer. “He’s reliable defensively and he showed some good ability offensively in that [U18 World Championship] tournament and to me. His skating is pretty powerful. A high-compete [player] and plays hard, so I liked that he has a good balance to his game; I think that’s probably the best asset. As a coach, I think you can be really comfortable putting him out no matter what the situation is in the game.”

Ruohonen models his game after Florida Panthers center Aleksander Barkov. It’s not a bad choice, as the 2024 Stanley Cup champion just won his second career Selke Trophy as the NHL’s top defensive forward. In the fall, Ruohonen will be heading to Dubuque, Iowa, to play for the Dubuque Fighting Saints of the United States Hockey League, the team fifth-round pick Noah Powell played for last season — the two have chatted a bit and share a stall in Voorhees — before he ships up to Boston to play for Harvard in 2025-26.

“I always saw myself coming to North America. My childhood dream is to play in the NHL,” Ruohonen said. “It’s a smaller rink, and North American style of hockey is a bit different, so I just wanted to get used to it as soon as I could.

“I’ve always been pretty good in school, so I was pretty in between the Canadian Hockey League and going the college route, and school’s always been pretty easy for me, so I decided to use that opportunity.”

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Part of the reason Kapanen is impressed with Ruohonen is how he’s setting himself up for life with a Harvard education. Of course, he hopes the Finland native make it to the NHL. But first, he has a few things to work on aside from the faceoff dot.

“Heikki is a good skate,” Kapanen said. “It looks like at times he can slow it down, and when it’s offensive plays, it just making sure there’s no rush in certain situations. You don’t need to rush it and make it quicker than needed. And, I think that way, it’s having patience and poise with a puck, and it comes with more reps and more people pointing it out and paying attention to that one. Those kinds of details you can already see within the week.”

For Cara Morey, the Flyers development camp is becoming an old hat. Now in her fourth year at the camp, the Princeton women’s hockey coach enjoys watching how the players have grown and improved. She was quick to point out how much blueliner Hunter McDonald and forward Owen McLaughlin have advanced their games.

“It’s really cool because I get to learn a lot while I’m out there,” Morey, 45, said. “But also, I think the really interesting part is that these guys are a lot of the same age as the players I coach. And you forget that when you come into Flyers camp. You think they’re all grown men and stuff, and it’s really all the same thing. My players are asking are the same questions they’re asking. So it’s really interesting realizing that the hockey is really the same and they’re at the same developmental level on and off the ice as the players I work with every day.”

Jessica Campbell opened the door for women to coach behind an NHL bench when she was named an assistant coach for the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday. Morey is more than happy at Princeton, where she has been the bench boss or an assistant coach since 2011, but knows how important Campbell breaking the glass ceiling is.

“Just really awesome to see more doors open for us because mostly in my profession, it was U.S. college hockey, then it grew a little bit, and they started paying Canadian college hockey. Now we have the pro league, and now maybe we’ve got some more doors [opened],” Morey said. “So, for me, it’s just our profession is now expanding, and there’s a lot more doors open when really it was 36 of these jobs in the whole country. It’s growing. So it’s great.”

It’s been a dream for Jack Page. The West Chester native was invited to the Flyers camp on Saturday by general manager Danny Brière when the team needed an extra defenseman.

Page, the son of the former Wells Fargo Center president John Page, fit in pretty well with the Flyers prospects. The 6-foot-4, 194-pound blueliner has skated in five games for Boston University across two seasons. Although he hasn’t played much, he’s learning all he can in Voorhees to bring back to Beantown.

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“We’ve just been working on today some two-on-one stuff, just minor details with you stick work, stuff like that,” Page said. “Reading, different hands, and just different aspects of that.”

Compared often to Travis Sanheim in terms of his skating, Page grew up a fan of former Flyer Mike Richards and often attended games as a kid.

“My favorite memory, for sure, is probably that [Boston] Bruins series when the Flyers were down, 3-0, and that whole 2010 run. I’ll never forget that whole year,” Page said. “The saddest day of my life was when, unfortunately, [Patrick] Kane scored that goal; that wasn’t too fun to watch.”

J.R. Avon showed off a bunch of speed and accuracy on Friday. Avon played in Lehigh Valley last season. … Lee Parks showed some pop on Friday. The 19-year-old notched 58 points (30 goals, 28 assists) in 62 games last season for Fargo Force of the United States Hockey League. He has a training camp invite. … Before the players compete in a scrimmage at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Flyers Training Center, they will sign autographs from 4-5 p.m.