Training camp and the start of the NHL preseason will make for a pivotal few weeks for forgotten Philadelphia Flyers prospect Adam Ginning, a defenseman now lost at the bottom of the pecking order.
Ginning, 25, has played just 11 NHL games for the Flyers over the course of the last three seasons, scoring one goal.
The 6-foot-3 Swede saw the bulk of that action in the 2023-24 season as an injury replacement, featuring in nine games under now-departed head coach John Tortorella.
Last season, as we know, is a different story, as Ginning played just one game - Jan. 30 against the New York Islanders - taking just 18 shifts and playing a total of 12:48 while picking up a -1 rating.
That's hardly a sign of trust as it is, and it was further evidenced by fellow Swedish defense prospects Emil Andrae and Helge Grans earning longer cameos in the NHL with the Flyers last season.
Now, with a new head coach in Rick Tocchet coming in and John Snowden now in charge of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms operation, any good faith Ginning has built over the years has been reduced to a clean slate.
That could work in the 25-year-old's favor, but it could also doom him to another full season in the AHL.
At this point, Andrae, Grans, Nick Seeler, Travis Sanheim, Cam York, Egor Zamula, Dennis Gilbert, and, probably, Hunter McDonald are all ahead of Ginning on the organizational depth chart.
The lack of upside hurts Ginning, too, as he'll turn 26 during the season (Jan. 13), has very little NHL experience relative to his peers bar McDonald, and produces a nominal amount of offense.
Ginning sunk his chances of making the NHL roster last season with a dreary preseason marred by turnovers, inaccurate and delayed passing, and generally being a slow operator at the heart of the Flyers' defense.
Tocchet, in his only two playoff appearances as an NHL head coach, heavily utilized puck-movers like Quinn Hughes, Filip Hronek, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Jakob Chychrun, Alex Goligoski, and Tyler Myers.
The defensemen who didn't move the puck as well or put up as many points were defensive foils, like Niklas Hjalmarsson, Ian Cole, Nikita Zadorov, Carson Soucy, and Jason Demers; all of whom were fairly accomplished NHL defensemen at that point.
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Noah Juulsen, too, has joined Tocchet in Philadelphia, further muddying Ginning's chances of sticking with the Flyers.
The 2018 second-round pick also has just one year remaining on his contract with the Flyers, after which he'll become a Group-6 unrestricted free agent.
And, before Ginning signed that two-year extension with the Flyers last offseason, there were well-traveled rumors that the hulking rearguard could opt to return to Sweden rather than continue to compete for an NHL future.
Based on how last year went, from preseason on, Ginning is effectively on his last chance to make it happen before a move to Sweden becomes the ideal path forward.
The Flyers welcome the competition - it will be fierce this fall - but Ginning has a long and arduous few weeks ahead of him if he is to finally stick at the NHL level.