On Friday night, the Philadelphia Flyers made a move that was both a surprise and perfectly expected, drafting the behemoth defenseman Maksim Sokolovskii with their first-round pick.

The surprise with Sokolovskii comes from the fact that there were increasingly long pregnant pauses in the Flyers media room; someone eventually had to take the 6-foot-7 defender.

Time between picks seemingly kept getting longer, and teams were frequently exchanging picks and striking trades with one another.

Yet, by the time the dust settled, Sokolovskii was still on the board, and the Flyers made him their first-round draft selection in the 2026 NHL Draft.

For a team that struggles to score and move pucks, though, what was the motivation behind the selection?

In the eyes of Flyers GM Danny Briere, it has everything to do with untapped potential and continued improvement throughout the past season.

"We saw him early in the season, we thought this could be a late pick for us, and then it seemed every month he just kept getting better and better and figuring out the game more and more," Briere said of Sokolovskii. "That was interesting to the point where he's going to be a first-rounder."

Sokolovskii joins a growing list of London Knights and, more generally, OHLers drafted by the Flyers in recent seasons.

Dating back to 2023, Matvei Michkov was the Flyers' last first-round pick to come from outside the Ontario league.

"It's not a secret they're one of the better organizations in the CHL. They seem to be able to build winners. There's a lot of guys that go through their program that end up in the NHL. They have a knack for raising those players to become pros," Briere added of the Knights. "For us, it's a no-brainer when we have the chance to take someone from London. It feels very comfortable."

Of course, Flyers president Keith Jones played for the London Knights many moons ago, and top prospects Denver Barkey and Oliver Bonk joined the Flyers from that organization in the 2023 draft.

The connection to the Flyers is there, and it helps that there is legitimate talent there, too.

Briere wouldn't commit to pegging Sokolovskii as a future first-, second-, or third-pair defender, but couldn't help but glow about the potential.

"Obviously, the way our development has worked the last few years. We feel confident that it's going to come. We know there's a lot of work to be done, but there's things that you can't teach, you can't change," said Briere.

"[Sokolovskii is] still going to be 6-foot-7 in two years from now, and  the [physicality and aggression] that he has as well is something you can't really teach that comes naturally to him, so that's that's a big plus. The rest of his game has to round out, no doubt about it, but the progression that we saw this season leads us to believe that it'll be able to make it to the NHL. What pairing? I don't know yet. It's a little too early to tell, but he could become a top four defenseman if things fall into place."

Sokolovskii, 17, is committed to the University of Maine for the 2027-28 season, and Briere and the Flyers anticipate their new top prospect playing the 2026-27 season in the OHL again before moving on to the college ranks.

In the meantime, the Flyers are hoping that Sokolovskii will continue to learn and improve, as he did throughout the 2025-26 season with the Knights.

"His puck play was was much different, and then understanding the game. When to go, when not to go, when to go for the big hits, when not to go and sit back, those are things that along the way got better and better this past season," Briere assessed.