“Bumper Bonk” shows his full capabilities at the camp

A funny thing happened to Oliver Bonk in his draft-plus-one year. In November, London Knights head coach Dale Hunter – a staunch Flyers ally despite being somewhat of a menace to the team during his tenure – moved Bonk to the “bumper” position on the power play, meaning the forward lines up at the top of the crease and tries to hit passes down low, mop up rebounds and block shots from the point.

It was a bit strange to watch as video clips of the phenomenon began to make their way back to Philadelphia. There was Bonk, 6’2” and in his trusty #59, looking as if he was lost.

The thing was, he didn’t look out of place. And Bonk, who had just 10 goals in the 2022-23 season, found immediate success, scoring in his first game in the role to end a personal 57-game goalless drought that spanned the regular season and the playoffs. When the season ended, Bonk had gone from 10 goals to 24, 15 of them on the power play, and his points total went from 40 to 67 in seven fewer games.

The craze spread throughout London. “Bumper Bonk” became a catchphrase that partly defined the season in London. T-shirts were made (they are available on the internet) and suddenly a new nickname followed: the Flyers Candidate.

“It was kind of funny,” Bonk said after the first day of ice work Tuesday at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees. “Teammates would jokingly call me names and stuff like that, but it was a fun thing throughout the year.”

The Flyers have certainly noticed this, but that is not the only thing the organization has noticed this past season. Also this week Bonk is back for his second Flyers Development Camp.

“His confidence really shines through,” said Riley Armstrong, the Flyers’ director of player development who is leading this camp. “He looks like he’s played professional hockey before, the way he carries himself in the locker room and on the ice. He’s never put a teammate in a bad position all year when he’s playing the puck, and then I think ‘Bumper Bonk’ came into play there and I think his confidence grew when he was on the power play and scoring a lot of goals in that area. He’s young, he knows who he is as a player, (and) he’s so smart — he covers his teammates well, he plays the puck well and he gets rewarded at the end of the day with the offensive opportunity. I definitely expect big things from him when he gets to training camp this year.”

“Bumper Bonk” generates the highlights, but it’s all the other things the Flyers expected from Bonk when they drafted him, and his development in those areas will be even more exciting for the Flyers front office. After all, the bumper role might not follow Bonk to the NHL.

“We’ll talk to Rocky (Thompson) about it when the time comes,” Armstrong said with a smile, referring to the Flyers assistant coach who runs the power play. “But I definitely think once he makes the steps to get here, we’ve talked about him knowing that I’m just going to throw the pucks out there, I know how to play my game, I’m going to shut down the other team’s best players and let the forwards do their thing. I think the one thing he’s really good at is jumping into the game. He knows when to go, so I think he can create his own opportunities.”

Much of that hockey feeling comes from being around the game his entire life as the son of former NHL centre Radek Bonk, himself a former first-round pick (third overall) of the Ottawa Senators in 1994. Radek’s 969-game NHL career was largely played before Oliver was born, but Radek did play five more years in his native Czech Republic, starting when Oliver was four. The family resettled in Ottawa after Radek’s career, and Oliver began playing in that youth hockey hotspot with his father never far away. It’s developed a strength that he now carries over into his NHL journey.