Cole Bardreau, if healthy, could be an option to help Flyers’ penalty kill

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — There’s a trend every fall that Cole Bardreau has found himself unwillingly following and it might be the reason why he’s not in the NHL already.

“Had high hopes going into training camp to get a sniff there and obviously, par for the course, get another injury,” Bardreau said this week.

He can only laugh because this one got strange and by the time he recovered, a spot with the Flyers was out of the question. Again. The 23-year-old forward is in his third full season with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and his skillset is one that might help him win an NHL job if he can stay healthy in the fall.

Bardreau broke his hand in a preseason game against the New York Islanders. He started the season on injured reserve and a few games into his return he dropped the gloves with Toronto Marlies forward Dmytro Timashov and re-broke his hand in the fight. Timashov’s tooth went into Bardreau’s knuckle and he ended up with a nasty infection.

“Had a couple surgeries on it and had a (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line in my arm there for a few weeks,” Bardreau said. “I had to give myself an IV every eight hours, which ruined my summer training. It just depleted my whole body of everything. I was out for probably seven weeks.”

In September 2016 he missed training camp due to abdominal surgery. During his four years at Cornell University he had consecutive MCL tears, a broken foot and was nearly paralyzed when he went headfirst into the boards against RPI and a vertebra had broken two different places in his neck.

He finished the game and didn’t know until two days later that he had a C-7 fracture. Fortunate as he was to not further injure himself, his luck has mostly been bad.

“It’s been the story of my career, it seems like,” he said of his long list of ailments. “I’ve been injured at the worst times. It’s something that you build mental toughness from it and take the positives, try not to think about the negatives and, again, just hope that next year is my year.”

After returning from the infection he had a solid season for the Phantoms with 11 goals and 30 points in 45 games. He helped the Phantoms’ penalty kill finish at 83.1 percent, good enough for a tie for 13th out of 30 teams in the American Hockey League. He had two of the Phantoms’ 12 shorthanded goals and that’s where he could help the Flyers, who finished third-worst in the NHL on the penalty kill.

They opted to keep assistant coach Ian Laperriere, who runs the penalty kill, and general manager Ron Hextall said he “looked hard at that.” He went on to say, “We’re not happy with our PK. It’s not good enough. Period.”

The Flyers improving more than four percent in the playoffs, against Pittsburgh’s NHL-best power play, likely saved Laperriere’s job. If he stays, then the personnel probably has to change or there’s no reason to expect improvement. Hextall identified a penalty-killing forward as a potential target in free agency, but Bardreau would be an in-house option with another year left on his contract.

“Offense is fun. Scoring goals is fun,” Bardreau said, “but I think as a pro here I’ve found my niche as a bottom-six energy guy, a guy that’s gonna be physical every shift. Penalty killing is one of those things I take a lot of pride in. I like to eat pucks, wear shots. That’s kind of where I bring the energy to this squad.”

He also plays every bit of the role Travis Konecny does for the Flyers when it comes to getting under the skin of others by flapping his gums.

Like Konecny, Bardreau’s chirping even extends to his own teammates.

“He’s just a high-energy guy,” Phantoms coach Scott Gordon said. “You’ll hear him. You’ll see him. When I say, ‘hear him,’ you’ll hear him because of his hits, you’ll hear his mouth. He’s a high-energy guy. His ability to bring that energy every single night — and it doesn’t just happen in the games, it’s 24/7. The guys enjoy leaving the rink to get away from him because he does talk.”

Gordon said that the coaches jokingly refer to Bardreau as “F1,” the first forward in on the forecheck, because his motor is so high he always has the energy to do it.

“He gets into that situation and he wants to be the first guy, the first guy out of the zone and get in on the forecheck,” Gordon said. “That’s a strength of his game. For me, even in the playoffs here he’s elevated his game to another level.”

Dave Isaac; @davegisaac; 856-486-2479; disaac@gannett.com