Anthony Stolarz Photo: Flyers Twitter
Before noon struck on day two of the 2012 NHL Draft, the Flyers already had four new additions to their club.
With their second-round pick (45th overall), which they acquired from the Blue Jackets in the Sergei Bobrovsky trade, the Flyers drafted 18-year-old goalie Anthony Stolarz.
Stolarz, who is a New Jersey native and Devils fan, is tall and lanky and often compared to Pekka Rinne of the Nashville Predators. He is currently playing Corpus Christi of the North American Hockey League and plans on attending the University of Nebraska-Omaha next season.
In the third round (78th overall) the Flyers selected Shayne Gostisbehere, a 19-year-old defenseman from Florida who scored 22 points in 41 games as a freshman at Union College, the second-most among NCAA freshman defenseman.
The Flyers took another defenseman in the fourth round, a 6-foot-3 Swede by the name of Fredric Larsson who is just 17 years old. There isn’t a whole lot of information out there about Larsson but the Flyers obviously saw something they liked.
With their other fourth-round pick (117th overall), the Flyers chose Taylor Leier, a winger who is currently playing for Portland in the WHL. As a rookie, Leier scored 13 goals and collected 37 points and isn’t afraid to drop the gloves.
The Flyers have just one more pick to go in this year’s draft after selecting Reece Willcox in the fifth round. Willcox is a defenseman who was expected to go a bit earlier but fell to 141st overall. He is expected to go to Cornell in the fall.
