It wasn’t that long ago that right winger Matthew Phillips was suiting up for the Victoria Royals, but it may seem like quite some time has passed for the 23-year-old. Much has happened since his time on Vancouver Island, but the one thing that has stayed the most consistent throughout the Calgary native’s career is success. In the 2015/16 WHL season, Phillips made an immediate impact to the team in his first year, putting up 76 points in 72 games. After scoring 90 the next season, Phillips would again improve on his numbers during his final WHL campaign where he scored 48 goals and had 64 assists for 112 points in 71 games. Philips would leave the team after that year with the most points scored in a single season by a Royal and the highest point per game average of anyone who had played for Victoria for more than 50 games. It was time to move on to bigger and better things, and for Phillips, that was the AHL’s Stockton Heat.
After being taken 166th overall in the sixth round of the 2016 NHL entry draft by the Calgary Flames, Phillips had an eye-opening 2018/19 rookie campaign. The Flames organization had to have been pleasantly surprised by their undersized late round selection. Over the next two seasons, Phillips would become almost a point-per-game player at the AHL level and even got to live out his childhood dream in May of 2021 by playing in his first NHL game with the Calgary Flames. With his appearance, Phillips became just the 18th player drafted in one of the last three rounds in 2016 to play a regular season NHL game.
This season, the 23-year-old is playing in his last year under contract with the Calgary Flames organization. For anyone playing professional hockey, the contract year is a very important one, as it’s the last opportunity you have to prove your worth to your own team and the other teams in the league that may be interested in picking you up. It has been no sweat for Phillips, who leads a very good Stockton Heat team in points at 37 in 34 games. Additionally, the right winger is now first in all-time goal scoring for Stockton after recently passing current Calgary Flames forward Andrew Mangiapane. With four more points, Phillips will also be the all-time franchise leader in points.
After all the success that he’s had in every level of his hockey career, the next step doesn’t seem that far away for the right winger from Calgary. The biggest hurdle Phillips faces may be his size, as many teams don’t always take a chance on smaller and lighter players despite their talents. However, his current team has maybe one of the best examples in the league of a smaller guy being able to succeed in Johnny Gaudreau, who leads the Flames in points and just came back from his sixth NHL All-Star game.
With his team currently sitting in first place in the AHL’s Pacific Division and Phillips at 10th in the league in points, he’s doing all he can to show he deserves a raise and a possible promotion in the offseason.
