Can Nicolas Aube-Kubel Help the Flyers in 2016-17?

VOORHEES — After many hockey players’ junior careers are over, there’s a small portion that sometimes gets tacked onto the end of their season and could be easily overlooked.

Although it’s only a few games, it’s also a wake-up call.

Nicolas Aube-Kubel, a right wing the Flyers selected in the second round of the 2014 draft, finished juniors with a career-best season for the Val-d'Or Foreurs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

Then he graduated to the American Hockey League and got a taste of what pro hockey is like.

He had two goals and one assist in six games for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

“The biggest thing is the quickness of the pass, quickness of the play,” Aube-Kubel explained. “It’s hard to create turnovers. It’s hard to not make turnovers. It’ll be a big challenge for next year. My junior career was good. My coach helped me a lot with those turnovers and also playing a 200-foot game. It will be a good challenge.”

Now 20, Aube-Kubel is eligible to be a professional hockey player. In all likelihood he will be with the Phantoms when training camp concludes this fall. That quick taste can be eye opening, as it was for the Sorel, Quebec, native, for what is about to come.