Denver Barkey’s absence on the ice is noticeable.
It doesn’t feel right to scan the ice at Philadelphia Flyers training camp, expecting to see the fleet-footed Barkey darting up and down the ice, only to realize that he’s been forced into a spectator role, watching from behind the glass as his teammates go through camp.
Barkey has spent the last couple of months recovering from mono, diagnosed right before he was due to report to the Flyers’ development camp in August. The diagnosis left him unable to participate in development or the team’s main training camp, instead having to work out and skate individually from his teammates at the Flyers Training Center.
“It sucked finding out,” he said of contracting mono. “There’s an unknown part of it, of how long you’re going to be tired for and how long it’s going to take your spleen swelling to go down, so the unknown part was kind of stressful and drove me crazy for a bit.”
While he “only had symptoms for a week or two,” it was clear that the Flyers’ training staff were taking every precaution to make sure that he took his time getting back into shape, with the biggest concern being his spleen (which can swell in a person with mono, and could rupture if hit).
Although he understood that his health had to take top priority, Barkey admits that having to be an onlooker while his teammates honed their skills in camp was a difficult thing to do.
“The first couple of weeks was whatever, you know, it was fine to watch, and then as the days got on, you just start to miss it even more,” he said. “To not really be a part of the group, you kind of just feel a bit out of it and you’re stuck on the sidelines with nothing to do. It’s out of your control, but, yeah, I was getting a little antsy.”
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Even though he was going stir crazy not being able to be out there with them, Barkey did find value in just watching the Flyers’ NHL players as they played their way through camp.
“At that time, I couldn’t even skate,” he said. “I was more observing. Getting to watch some of these NHL guys from the sidelines, you get to pay attention to their details and see some of the little things they do.
“I just wanted to get back on the ice and get my feet back under me. [It was] tough mentally, and it was just draining not being able to be a part of it. But I stayed strong and stuck to the process.”
The “process” meant hitting the gym to gain back the weight he lost while he was sick (“I’ve gained all of it back, and I’ve been a couple pounds heavier than I was,”) and easing him back onto the ice by having him do individual skating drills with former Flyers player Patrick Sharp.
“As the skates went on with [Sharp], I started to feel good,” Barkey explained. “I thought I was back, but when I started to practice a bit, just passing and speed, I kind of had to adjust again. I’m still shaking the rust off a bit. I couldn’t say I was 100% ready for my first practice—it took me a couple of practices to get back to feeling normal.
“The biggest thing, at first, was just my endurance on the ice. I would get tired pretty quickly and, when I first started skating again, I had to take breaks after every couple of drills. My endurance was pretty good [before], so that was frustrating for me. I had worked really hard all summer on my endurance, too, just so I could do well in camp. To see that kind of go away, I was really struggling with that. We worked at it and slowly upped the amount of reps I did in practice every day and worked out in the gym as well. That was probably the biggest part that I realized I had to work back and get to.”
It meant that he was was spared from having to do John Tortorella’s infamous “rope test,” a skating drill that gets its own entire day of training camp and is something that his players admit that they dread all summer.
Unless, of course, you’re Denver Barkey.
“Yeah, I guess,” he answered when asked if he was relieved to not have to do the rope test. “Some guys are like, ‘You’re lucky,’ but at the same time, it sucks. It’s a tough skate, but I think, for me and a lot of guys, it kind of shows you and shows the coaches your work ethic, the work you put in all summer, your ability to just be able to push through the pain. The skate test sucks and everyone dreads it, but for me, at least, I think that’s a spot where I can show my work ethic and all the work I put in all summer.”
As he prepares to head back to the OHL to play another season with the London Knights, along with fellow Flyers prospect Oliver Bonk, his focus remains on building back his strength and not overexerting himself too early on.
“I’m not trying to do too much right now,” he said. “[I’m] just trying to get my hands back and get a feel for the puck and the speed—just sticking to simple plays and trying to play a simple game until I get my confidence back and start to feel good and confident on the ice again. That’s a big thing for me right now. I’m slowly adjusting because the speed is a lot different, even from junior hockey, so still have to adjust that.”
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Barkey and Bonk might have been expecting to be joined by fellow OHL player and Flyers prospect Jett Luchanko in heading back to juniors, as he played for the Guelph Storm last season, but Luchanko looks to be a lock for the Flyers’ NHL roster straight out of training camp—something that isn’t surprising to Barkey.
“He’s a great kid and I’ve got to know him really well over the past couple weeks,” he said. “We’ve spent a lot of time together in the hotel and stuff like that. He’s a really special player. He kind of broke out last year out of nowhere and I felt the more I played against him, the more I realized how good he was. He’s a hardworking kid and I’m not surprised he’s still around here trying to earn a spot on the team, so it’s cool for him.”
And if Luchanko does end up going back to the OHL at some point this season, Barkey joked that he and Bonk have assumed pseudo-general manager roles to try and convince the London native to don the green and yellow.
“We’re trying to get him over to London, so we’ll see how that goes,” he laughed. “It would really work out nicely.”
(For the record, Luchanko confirmed that the pair were “trying” to get him to come to the Knights, but he “doesn’t know what’s happening there… There’s nothing behind that.”)
For a player like Barkey, who’s best known for a seemingly endless energy supply, tricky skating abilities, and a mind wired for drawing up clever, exciting plays, the past couple of months have been maddening to say the least.
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But if you know anything about the 19-year-old winger, it’s that it’s virtually impossible to keep him down for long.
“I’ve wanted to get right back to it a long time ago, and [the Flyers] have been taking it slowly,” he told me. “I think this whole process has been good for me because you’re gonna have ups and downs in your career and stuff happens. You get injured and and it’s important to make sure you’re 100% before you go back because you might get injured again and that can lead to further issues down the road.
“Seeing what it’s like with the work you have to put in every day, it’s been good for me. It’s tough some days and you just want to be part of the team, but I’ve learned a whole lot. Down the road, if I ever have another injury or anything like that, I have an idea of what the process is like and how long it takes and how important it is to take your time and make sure you’re 100%… I’m feeling good now—maybe even better than I was before.”
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