The Flyers and their early-season injuries.
As if the start of the 2026-27 season couldn't be more glum for the Philadelphia Flyers, one of their top prospects is already set to miss time through an injury.
On Friday night, Sokolovskii's club, the OHL London Knights, announced that the 18-year-old defenseman will be out week-to-week with a lower-body injury.
Sokolovskii is now the latest in a growing line of Flyers injuries, joining players like Denver Barkey, Nikita Grebenkin, and Helge Grans on the shelf.
So far, the Flyers' 2026 first-round pick has played in just one game for the Knights this season: a 7-4 win against the Owen Sound Attack on Sept. 25.
In that game against Owen Sound, Sokolovskii quickly got himself on the highlight reels, laying a devastating hit on Attack forward Lucian Bernat and sending his opponent's stick flying in the air in cartoonish fashion.
Of course, Sokolovskii would have to answer for that and fight Julian Brown, a 6-foot-4 fellow defenseman who he was teammates with last year on London before Brown joined Owen Sound.
Unfortunately for the Flyers and their new top prospect, Sokolovskii's season will get off to a bit of a slow start after he played in only 44 regular season games for the Knights last year, plus five playoff games.
The silver lining, on the other hand, is that the 6-foot-8 Russian blue liner looked pretty good in his lone OHL appearance this season, building on the growth that the Flyers saw from him over the course of the last season that vaulted him into the first-round conversation heading into the 2026 NHL Draft.
Sokolovskii was one of the more impressive, noticeable players throughout rookie camp and the early stages of development camp, so as long as the injury isn't a long-term deal, this bump in the road shouldn't end up hampering his development this season all that much, if at all.
