Flyers prospect Alex Čiernik excited to turn ‘a new page’ under Sami Kapanen in Finland

Sami Kapanen is not a demanding coach … when it comes to determining who is on his roster.

The former Flyers forward, who has been the head coach of the Lahti Pelicans in Liiga, Finland’s top men’s league, since February, rarely — if ever — marches into his general manager’s office requesting players to be signed. No exception was made for Flyers prospect Alex Čiernik.

Sort of.

“I gave a strong recommendation for GM [Janne Laukkanen] to kind of go and look and check out Alex and see if the organization, if the team likes him, a kind of up-and-coming young player with good skills and good skating,” Kapanen said via a phone interview. “Ended up that they signed Alex, and that way, getting an opportunity to coach him, I really like that one.”

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Čiernik signed a one-year deal with the Pelicans this offseason, reuniting him with Kapanen. The duo worked together for a season and a half when Kapanen was a member of the Flyers’ player development staff, and both parties are excited to continue the relationship.

“I know him pretty well, I think. I heard he’s a little hotheaded, so we’ll see how that goes,” Čiernik told The Inquirer during development camp with a smile. “But no, he knows my game better than any coach anywhere, and I know him pretty well, too. So it should be a good fit.”

Selected in the fourth round by the Flyers in 2023, the 20-year-old Čiernik tallied 23 points (11 goals, 12 assists) in 46 regular-season games, and a goal in two qualification games last season for Nybro Vikings IF of HockeyAllsvenskan, Sweden’s second-highest pro league. He then joined Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League and registered an assist in three games for the Phantoms.

“I think I got a lot better without the puck,” Čiernik said at the PPL Center in April. “That’s always been something that people kind of said about me, that I’m not good defensively. And I think this year I balanced it out a little bit and, at the same time, try to be more comfortable with the puck. So I think just in general, it was a more balanced kind of game.”

“If you know how to play better without the puck, maybe steal the puck more often, then you’re also going to get more offense. … That’s what my dad [former NHL forward Ivan Čiernik] always told me: If you steal the puck three times, you’re going to have the puck more than if you just stand around there. So, that’s kind of how you have to think about it.”

The biggest shift this past season for Čiernik was that he was primarily healthy. He missed considerable time during the 2023-24 season after sustaining two head injuries, including one while representing Slovakia at World Juniors, and was limited to just 32 total games.

So this past season was not just about growing his game; it was about feeling 100% comfortable back on the ice. Čiernik thought this season “wasn’t anything spectacular, but I’m pretty satisfied it went in the right direction,” and while he cannot directly correlate the impact of the concussions on his game, he did feel that he played smarter and put himself in better positions. It was an important step because he is not the biggest guy at 5-foot-10, 180 pounds.

“When I talked to him, because of the bigger ice in Sweden, it’s not as engaged physically with and without the puck. And I’m like, you playing over there, I want you to get into more battles and even if you have the puck, get into a guy to create separation and stuff like that, because over there, you can just wander and get lost from guys with the extra 15 feet,” Flyers director of player development Riley Armstrong said in April.

The Pelicans’ first regular-season game isn’t until Sept. 9, but the team is already practicing and played an exhibition game on Aug. 8. Čiernik skated on the third line but, according to Kapanen, got “absolutely hit” with “almost a head shot,” which scared the head coach.

Čiernik was held out of the third period as a precaution due to neck tightness and underwent a Sport Concussion Assessment Tool or SCAT Test. The tests showed he was good to go, and he is back practicing with his new club.

“Those will happen over the years, so he kind of got to get used to it and just keep battling through and playing, and making sure that there’s no injury to play with, but that you can maintain your ability to play even though you get hit,” said Kapanen, who was famously hit high by Toronto Maple Leafs forward Darcy Tucker in the 2004 Stanley Cup playoffs.

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And there will certainly be more hitting and contact in Finland. Unlike HockeyAllsvenskan, which has IIHF-sized rinks, Liiga’s rinks are closer to the NHL’s rink dimensions.

“I felt like I was kind of, maybe not stuck is the right word, but just kind of in the same situation the last couple years,” said Čiernik, who added he does not speak Finnish. “In the same league, in the same country, and for me to kind of go to that next level and new people, new country, new everything, it’s exciting for me to, kind of, flipping a new page.”

Being with Kapanen should help. The former NHLer played 831 games, including 311 in orange and black, and raves about Čiernik’s skill, quickness, and explosiveness. The young winger also showed an increased willingness to drive to the net and play less on the perimeter than he did at last year’s development camp, creating time and space for scoring opportunities for himself and his teammates.

But that doesn’t mean the Slovakian doesn’t have things to work on. Kapanan was just as adamant that Čiernik needs to work on fitness and endurance, adding that “he’s not using his speed as much as he should, because he needs to kind of save his energy and kind of pick his spot when he’s doing it.”

Čiernik will look to take another leap under the watchful eye of Kapanen, a fellow winger of similar stature who excelled in the NHL.

“There’s similarities size-wise, skating skills, quickness, handling the puck, probably about the same positions on the power-play unit, those kind of things,” said Kapanen. “But like, I have that edge on playing a physical game, going underneath, that being hit in order to get the puck, or I would try to hit and punish the other team players. And Alex is not there yet on that two-way game. He’s gotten better at it. So that’s something that we’ll try to add on at least a little bit.”

Kapanen projects Čiernik as a middle-six winger in the NHL.

“He’s not the biggest body, but he’s highly skilled, and his skating has really come,” assistant general manager Brent Flahr said of Čiernik after development camp.

“He’s a guy we hope has a good year under Sami, and we have a good relationship with him, and Sami is a big fan of his game, so it should be a good year for him. And at the end of the year, hopefully, get him over here for good and start his North American career.”