NHL draft: Could the Flyers keep it in the family with two-way ace Caleb Desnoyers?

BUFFALO, N.Y. — You can excuse Caleb Desnoyers if he looked tired at the NHL scouting combine.

Over the last month, the draft prospect was named the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League’s playoff MVP after helping Moncton beat Rimouski in the championship series. Desnoyers and his Wildcats teammates then left Quebec and went home to New Brunswick after their series-clincher on May 19, before returning to Rimouski less than four days later for the Memorial Cup.

Desnoyers’ Wildcats reached the semifinals on May 30, falling to eventual champions Oliver Bonk, Denver Barkey, and London of the Ontario Hockey League. Considering the last time he lost a championship, he said he went on to win four in a row, and takes it as “mileage.”

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“You cannot be successful by only learning through the wins,” he told The Inquirer in Buffalo. “Obviously, it’s not fun, but you need some losses sometimes to grow your game and develop yourself to be the best player and person that you can. So, obviously that loss was tough, but looking back at it, a great opportunity to grow from that.”

That growth will be useful as he takes the next steps to realizing his NHL dreams. Desnoyers, 18, has seen his stock rise during the draft process and is expected to go in the top 10 of the draft on June 27 (7 p.m., ESPN, ESPN+).

Despite arriving late to the combine due to some events in Moncton after the Memorial Cup, by the time Desnoyers sat down for a chat in the restaurant at the Buffalo Marriott attached to Harborcenter on June 6, he was nearing the end of his 20 scheduled interviews with NHL teams. He had met with the Flyers about an hour before.

But Philly assuredly already knows a lot about Desnoyers — because, if the center ever dons the Orange and Black, the Flyers may have to make sure it says “C. Desnoyers” on the back of his sweater. Why? His brother, Elliot, was selected in the fifth round of the 2020 draft and currently plays for the Flyers’ American Hockey League affiliate in Lehigh Valley.

Elliot and Caleb Desnoyers, the oldest and youngest, of three boys, respectively, spent their childhood battling while playing floor hockey in the basement.

“Our basement used to be full of holes in the walls, and we would just either hit each other, shoot pucks at each other outside as well,” Elliot Desnoyers told The Inquirer in April.

Added Caleb: “We had to redo the whole basement because it was banged up everywhere. But often it was games finishing [with] me crying because the two older brothers were tough on me. But I was also a little competitive kid who wanted to win against my two older brothers — but obviously, it was tough to do against them.”

That competitive nature is something the Desnoyers boys still have. While they train in the summer at their father, David Desnoyers’ rink, Isatis Sport St-Hyacinthe in Quebec, alongside Flyers prospect Zayde Wisdom, they make up games to keep it competitive.

It has helped the younger Desnoyers become a force. The 6-foot-2, 172-pound center broke out this year with 35 goals and 84 points in 56 regular-season games for Moncton and added nine goals and 30 points in 19 playoff games.

It turns out Desnoyers did it with two bad wrists, after revealing at the combine he’s been dealing with the injuries since November. While it was hard to play through, as he said, “when I put my skates on, I expect myself to give 100% every time and, no matter what the issues are, I’ll be able to make a difference for the team.” He was waiting for test results at the combine to determine if he needed surgery.

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While Elliot Desnoyers, who is a restricted free agent along with Wisdom, was often name-checked by Flyers management in 2023-24 due to his strong defensive game, Caleb has a much higher ceiling as a playmaker and offensive player. He is projected to be, at minimum, a second-line center in the NHL. A versatile playmaker, Desnoyers is known for his hockey IQ, vision, responsible defensive play, and winning pedigree.

“We’ve got some similar parts of our game,” said Elliot Desnoyers, who is three inches shorter than his baby brother. “I think he thinks the game the same way. He’s really good with the puck, and can make plays from everywhere. His size is a big part of his game as well. He can throw his body around, and the way he thinks the game, there’s a lot of poise to his game.”

The younger Desnoyers said he’s a competitive centerman who strives to make the players around him better. He compared his game to that of former Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews. NHL draft analyst Chris Peters of FloHockey called that a decent comparable and said Desnoyers is “probably the most well-rounded center in this draft” and “the guy that we’re most convinced will be a center.”

But the question is, how he could work with Matvei Michkov?

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“He is an incredibly smart player,” the Athletic’s NHL draft reporter Scott Wheeler said of Desnoyers. “He can think and operate, I think, at the same level that Matvei does in terms of just the brilliant hockey IQ that Matvei has. And then he can also be a bit of a defensive valve for a player like Michov, and he can be a support mechanism for him.

“He’s a very intelligent defensive player as well as an offensive player. … I think [Michkov] could really benefit from playing with a player who really understands both sides of the puck and how to support his linemates and doesn’t cheat for anything. That’s really what Desnoyers is.”

The Flyers need centers, and Desnoyers would be a good fit for the Flyers as they continue their rebuild. He’s a nice complement to 2024 first-rounder Jett Luchanko, a speedy center and burgeoning setup man.

Recently named the captain for Moncton, Desnoyers wants to play in the NHL as soon as possible, but is open to returning to juniors. Given the new NCAA-CHL rule change, he could also opt to go to college, but he says he hasn’t thought about that too much just yet.

For now, his eyes are on the prize of playing in the NHL, something Elliot Desnoyers experienced when he played four games for the Flyers toward the end of the 2022-23 season. Caleb Desnoyers missed watching his big brother’s debut at the Prudential Center against the New Jersey Devils in person, but was there when he made his Wells Fargo Center debut in a Flyers jersey in March 2023.

“Special,” Caleb said of the moment. “We’re really proud to be little kids from Quebec and trying to make our province proud. Seeing him perform and play the way that he played his first few games was something unique.”

Family is important to Desnoyers. He wears No. 18 because his father’s birthday is Oct. 10, and his mother Martine Laliberté’s birthday is the eighth. The two brothers text each other during the season and watch each other’s games to offer advice. Last season, wearing orange to blend in, Caleb was in Lehigh Valley to watch Elliot and the Phantoms in the American Hockey League’s playoffs. This year, Elliot was able to be in Rimouski for the Memorial Cup.

Now he’ll get to watch his little brother get drafted in Los Angeles. And maybe those kids who used to play hockey in the basement, pretending to be NHLers together, will get to do it for real in orange and black.

As Caleb Desnoyers said: “Would mean the world.”

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