GHOST STORY

Flyers fans that want to know who to thank can send their appreciation to John Riley. Now one of two player development coaches for the Flyers, Riley was a scout at the time.

He watched Shayne Gostisbehere weave in and out of the opposition before he was on almost anyone else’s radar.

He saw Gostisbehere play at South Kent Preparatory School in Connecticut, where the defenseman they call “Ghost” played for two seasons before joining Union College. By the time everyone else in the league wanted his rights the Flyers already had them.

“We really relied on John’s expertise in that area from a viewing standpoint,” said Chris Pryor, the Flyers’ director of scouting who helped draft Gostisbehere in the third round in 2012. “That’s what we do a lot of times. Area guys or guys that have seen the guy the most, they’re gonna have the biggest say for obvious reasons. They’ve seen him the most. John was a big advocate of Shayne because he saw him the most.”

At 5-foot-10 and less than 180 pounds, the undersized defenseman was draft eligible in 2011, too, before he played a game for Union. No one picked him. Gostisbehere didn’t expect to be drafted and he didn’t much care. His goal was to play college hockey. The NHL was, as he called it, “a pipedream.” He wasn’t in Pittsburgh when the Flyers selected him.

“My mom was too scared,” Gostisbehere said. “I wasn’t supposed to be a high-round pick. I didn’t expect to go in the third, let alone at all. I’m glad Philly took the leap of faith.”

Not only did they take a leap of faith in drafting him, they appear to have struck gold. Gostisbehere was a hot name in his last year at Union, when he was a near-impossible plus-7 in the Dutchmen’s 7-4 national championship win over the University of Minnesota. Last season was cut short by a torn ACL in his left knee, but he’s back and better than ever. In his first 17 NHL games, Gostisbehere had three overtime winners.

Last season he was called up for two games, but general manager Ron Hextall made no mistake about saying he thought it was too soon for that kind of opportunity. Gostisbehere was only up at the NHL level because his offensive-mined skill set was needed.

Hextall said this year was a necessity also, with Mark Streit being out after having surgery to repair a detached pubic plate, but this time around Gostisbehere, 22, is just too good to send back to the minors.

“It’s still a little bit of a risk,” said Hextall, who has preached ad nauseam his preference to let young prospects develop in the minor leagues rather than the NHL, “but he’s not 18, 19 or 20. He’s a little bit older and you can see the maturity in his game, even from…remember him last year to this year? Up top (at the blueline in the offensive zone), it’s night and day.”

Instead of sending Gostisbehere back to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, Hextall waived forward Sam Gagner Tuesday so that the Flyers could afford the defenseman’s entry-level contract. If Gagner clears waivers and is sent to the minors, the Flyers would have roughly $695,000 in salary cap space according to generalfanager.com.

‘The lead singer of our group’

Rick Bennett gets a chuckle when he’s watching TV and sees Gostisbehere duck hits and forecheckers in the NHL just like he did in college.

“It seems like he’s doing just fine,” he said.

Bennett, the head coach at Union College, first saw Gostisbehere play for Kent during a game at Army.

“I’ll never take credit for it,” Bennett said. “I think was a team effort in recruiting Shayne. I think the guy that really helped out tremendously was Ben Barr, who’s now at Western Michigan. I think Ben had actually seen him more than I had.”

Gostisbehere, a native of South Florida, had the same “intangibles” back then that he does now. There was a bit of a risk in the defensive zone, but what Gostisbehere did with the puck on his stick was undeniable. Bennett was sold.

“I think it was the stuff behind the scenes, trying to find out more about this guy from Florida,” Bennett said. “The more we looked into him and did more research, the more the positives came up. When it was time to offer Shayne, it was pretty easy.”

“It just fit so well with what I wanted,” Gostisbehere added. “I wanted a small-school feel and that’s what my boarding school was with only 180 kids so it was a perfect match.”

For three years, Gostisbehere was a force for the Dutchmen. The turning point in his college career, Bennett says, was when Gostisbehere returned from the 2013 World Juniors where he had two points in six games, but came back a different player.

“The minute he walked through that door when he came back to come into the office, just his sheer confidence,” Bennett said. “It wasn’t cocky at all. It was actually kind of humble, just speaking with him. I think that experience alone gave him that next hurdle that he needed to be not just a good college player, but a great college player.”

The greatest point was winning the national championship on what would eventually be his home ice. It was Wells Fargo Center where Gostisbehere put on a clinic and helped beat Minnesota with a goal and two assists.

“I show that game and what he was doing out there on the ice,” Bennett said. “They say you always need that lead singer and he was definitely the lead singer of our group that night. It was a phenomenal performance. We needed that, but he also kept it within the team. I can’t thank him enough for being so humble through it all.”

In the NHL to stay

Gostisbehere knows Hextall’s penchant for patience. He knows that if the Flyers’ general manager had his druthers he’d probably be in Allentown, Pa., playing for the Phantoms instead.

“I don’t deserve anything just because I scored some goals here and there,” he said. “You’ve just got to keep a level head and stay grounded and realize that I haven’t even played 20 games yet. You’ve just got to keep telling yourself that.”

Even his Flyers teammates wouldn’t have believed he could be sent back, though.

“He brings a whole other dynamic that we don’t have on our team on our back end,” defenseman Michael Del Zotto said. “You see the plays he makes, he makes guys miss 1-on-1. I think that’s the biggest thing with him is how he can avoid a forecheck. The plays he makes with the puck, that allows more open ice for other guys, a lot more open ice for him. That essentially leads to scoring chances, which eventually leads to goals. That’s something that hasn’t come easy all year. He’s really helped us in that department and helping us win games.”

Gostisbehere seems destined to be in the NHL.

His maternal grandfather, Denis Brodeur, got him into hockey. Aside from putting him on the ice, Brodeur would also take his grandson to watch the Florida Panthers with his season-ticket package. Gostisbehere’s father, Regis, born in France, came to the U.S. to play Jai Alai, a sport where a ball is bounced at high speeds off a wall. His mother, Christine, met his father at the fronton, where jai alai is played. He grew up in rinks where his sister, Felicia, was a figure skater.

It appears as though Gostisbehere is here to stay. He’s the first one to “make it” from a defense corps of the future that will likely include Flyers draft picks Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim and Samuel Morin among others.

Every team hits the jackpot every so often in the draft. In that regard, Gostisbehere’s story isn’t so different. It just so happens that Riley found him first.

“I appreciate that John Riley dug deep,” Bennett said. “You find out more about the family, it’s a very, very nice family. You see where he gets it from with his father being an ex-Jai Alai player and the hand-eye skils needed to play that sport. His grandfather, the ties that he has to Canada. The more you dig deep, you can see why he’s so good.”

Dave Isaac; (856) 486-2479; disaac@gannettnj.com .

FLYERS AT SHARKS

When: 10:30 p.m., Wednesday

TV/Radio: CSN/93.3 FM