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Jett Luchanko officially no longer has a teammate quality issue in junior hockey.
On Monday, the Flyers‘ top center prospect — taken 13th overall by the club in the 2024 NHL Draft — was the subject of a blockbuster OHL trade. The longstanding member of the Guelph Storm was shipped to the Brantford Bulldogs, who currently lead the entire OHL with a 18-0-4-1 record.
The cost was not insignificant — the Bulldogs traded away four draft picks and Layne Gallacher, who had 12 points in 21 games for the Bulldogs. But the already-stacked Bulldogs are looking to load up for a 2026 Memorial Cup run, and the addition of Luchanko boosts their center depth dramatically.
From the Flyers’ perspective, however, this is most important for what it means for Luchanko’s development and the remainder of his season — his final one in junior hockey.
The 19-year old Luchanko made the Flyers out of training camp for the second straight season, appearing in four NHL games (zero goals and zero points in 8:58 minutes per game) before the front office chose to return him to his junior team — at that time, the Guelph Storm. Luchanko quickly returned to his scoring ways in the OHL, putting up 17 points (two goals, 15 assists) in 11 games with the Storm, a 1.55 point-per-game pace that was a sizable jump over his 1.22 PPG pace from 2024-25.
But Luchanko was always going to be limited offensively on Guelph due to the quality of his teammates. The Storm were improved in 2025-26 after finishing with the second-worst record in the OHL last season — but they still sat in a tie for 13th in points percentage in a 20-team league as of Monday. Aside from Luchanko, not a single member of the Guelph Storm was scoring at over a point-per-game pace. Luchanko’s ability to develop the creative and offensively assertive side of his game — his biggest current weakness as a prospect — was going to be stifled there.
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Not so in Brantford. The Bulldogs are loaded — as one would expect from a team that has yet to lose a single game in regulation just three days before American Thanksgiving. Brantford has six players scoring at over a point-per-game rate, led by 2025 eighth overall pick Jake O’Brien; his 40 points in 21 games leads the entire OHL at the moment.
Luchanko, of course, will slot in behind O’Brien, the team’s star center, so Luchanko’s minutes could be cut a bit from where they were in Guelph. But any decrease in minutes should be overcome by the dramatic improvement in quality of teammates. With Guelph, there was legitimate concern that Luchanko would not be able to properly develop his offense due to lack of high-end support on the wings and too much time spent defending. With Brantford, Luchanko will be paired with highly skilled and creative linemates and spend ample of time in the offensive zone, hopefully helping him to fine-tune his play with the puck on the attack.
The Flyers also surely approve of Luchanko’s new coach, Jay McKee. McKee is not only a former teammate of Flyers general manager Daniel Briere, he also was a finalist for the Flyers’ open head coaching job this past summer, according to The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler. They’re very familiar with McKee, and can be confident both in his quality as a coach, and that they’ll have an open line to the man in charge of Luchanko’s ice time and usage over the next six months.
And it could be as long as six months. Brantford is currently a favorite to represent the OHL at the Memorial Cup, which lasts through the end of May. In other words, Luchanko isn’t likely to join the Lehigh Valley Phantoms at the conclusion of his OHL campaign (as he did in 2025), unless the Bulldogs suffer a shocking upside in the OHL playoffs, or the Phantoms go on a run to the Calder Cup Finals.
The Memorial Cup also explains why Guelph chose to trade Luchanko now, after keeping him through last season’s OHL trade deadline despite their place in the OHL basement and legitimate interest from contenders. Last week, Guelph was named host of the 2027 Memorial Cup, which brings an automatic bid into the four-team final. Now, Guelph’s goal is to load up for the 2026-27 season, so that they can take full advantage of their auto bid. Luchanko was never going to be a factor for them in 2026-27, so this trade allows them to collect assets that can help them in a far more important season than this one.
Luchanko will only spend a couple weeks with his new OHL club before he heads to Canada’s World Junior selection camp in December, with an eye on representing his country for the second straight season at the U20 World Junior Championships. But the rest of his 2025-26 OHL season will now be spent on a talent-rich club with designs on winning a title. For the first time in his major junior career, Luchanko will have high-end support.
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Back in 2024, the Flyers made a bet on draft day that Luchanko’s just-OK scoring totals were a product of environment, not ultimate upside. On Brantford, Luchanko will have the perfect opportunity to prove them right.
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