Philadelphia Flyers: Who Could Contend For The Depth Forward Spot?

Which Philadelphia Flyers player could earn the final forward spot when the 2019-20 season begins?

There will be a few roster battles taking place when the Philadelphia Flyers training camp gets underway in September. The most notable is that of the third-line winger, which is likely to go to a rookie as long as General Manager Chuck Fletcher doesn’t bring a bonafide Top-9 player in via trade. Other notables battles include the seventh defenseman position, which we broke down here, and the 13th forward spot.

With a healthy Tyler Pitlick, who’s currently injured but is slated to come back before the regular season starts, the Flyers have 11 forwards who will believably be on the roster opening night. Obviously, most of the guys will have their sights set on the open line three position, but not everyone will obtain or even contend for the role. With that being said, who could become the 13th man on October 4th?

I’ll start off with somebody I already mentioned, and that’s Pitlick. Suffering an injury about a couple of weeks away from the beginning of camp doesn’t help his case, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility a rookie could take and subsequently keep his fourth-line role with a strong showing in the pre-and-regular season. This scenario is somewhat unlikely because I think Alain Vigneault and company will value his work in the defensive zone, but it can’t be ruled out.

A few of the rookie candidates include Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Mikhail Vorobyev, and Carsen Twarynski, with Aube-Kubel being the most likely out of the bunch. I say that due to the fact that Aube-Kubel is no longer waiver-exempt and could be claimed by another NHL team if he’s cut from the Flyers team. I imagine some of those clubs wouldn’t mind having a player like Aube-Kubel on their bottom line given his youth and upside, making it risky for Fletcher to place him on waivers.

It happened to Danick Martel this past year, who I think NAK will eventually be better than, so who’s to say it won’t happen to Aube-Kubel this time around? In Vorobyev and Twarynski’s case, both had good showings last fall, with Vorobyev earning himself a role in Philadelphia. Although the Flyers brass would probably rather see them get time on the ice over sitting in the press box, excellent exhibition performances could push that narrative.

As far as other veterans go, Andy Andreoff, Kurtis Gabriel, and Chris Stewart will all be in the mix, too. They may not be the most exciting options, but all three could certainly serve as depth pieces throughout the year and fill in from time-to-time whenever an injury occurs, though I’d rather see a rookie take an injured guys’ place, personally.