Philadelphia Flyers: Training camp roster announced
With training camp about to be underway, the Flyers have released the players who will be taking to the ice.
34 Flyers players will be taking to the ice as training camp will be underway starting today. The team will skate in two different groups throughout the day. The list for those groups will be made available later.
Group A will take to the ice from 10:30-11:30. Group B will then take their turn to skate from 2:00-3:00.
18 different forwards, 12 defensemen, and 4 goaltenders will be taking park in training camp. Out of the 34 players taking part in camp, 31 of them will make their way to Toronto on July 26th.
Four players will be made available each day of camp to speak with the media. Alain Vigneault will be a part of that group as well. Chuck Fletcher is expected to speak to the media on at least the first day of camp.
Forwards
Andy Andreoff, Travis Konecny, Michael Raffl, Kevin Hayes, Sean Couturier, Tyler Pitlick, Scott Laughton, James van Riemsdyk, Claude Giroux, Derek Grant, Nate Thompson, Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, German Rubtsov, Nicolas Aube-Kubel Carsen Twarynski, Connor Bunnaman, and Jakub Voracek
There aren’t many surprises among the group of forwards. Most of the group consists of the Flyers main roster on any given night.
Frost, Bunnaman, and Twarynski were already expected to be a part of the team’s expanded roster. Rubtsov and Andreoff will have the chance to impress during camp.
This is also where Farabee will have a chance to prove that he should be a part of the game day roster. There likely won’t be many, if any, cuts made from this group of forwards. It’s a matter of who will be playing once the playoffs begin.
Expected, the biggest name not on this list is Nolan Patrick. This makes what most knew would be official. He is not going to be a part of the playoff roster. Having not played in over a year, this decision was only a matter of time.
Defensemen
Andy Welinski, Philippe Myers, Travis Sanheim, Robert Hagg, Ivan Provorov, Matt Niskanen, Tyler Wotherspoon, Nate Prosser, Shayne Gostisbehere, Egor Zamula, Mark Friedman, Justin Braun
Among this group of defensemen, there are a few new names that we haven’t seen this season. Welinski, Wotherspoon, and Prosser have spent this season in the minor leagues. However, they do have NHL experience.
The biggest name on the list is a player not expected to be in the lineup. And that is Zamula. He spent most of this season and offseason rehabbing after having back surgery. He has been skating in the area during this time. Even though he won’t be playing in the playoffs, his ability to take part in training camp is a positive sign.
About half of these defensemen won’t see the ice for the Flyers during the playoffs. Out of the expanded group, Friedman is the only one who has an outside chance of blowing everyone out of the water.
Goaltenders
Alex Lyon, Brian Elliott, Kirill Ustimenko, and Carter Hart
This is the most expected group of players that will be taking part in Flyers camp. And the end result of who will be going to Toronto should be easily figured out.
Giving Ustimenko reps in training camp will be good for his development. But he is not expected to be joining the team for the postseason.
That will be Lyon, who has had his fair share of NHL experience already. While he would only enter the playoffs if the Flyers ran into goaltending injuries, he offers them someone who has seen the NHL game before.
This is the easiest group the Flyers will have to shorten after camp. The team will actually only need to drop three players when it comes down to it.
The group that will affected the most will likely be the defensemen. The team won’t need all 12 to follow them into Toronto. So they will likely drop a few from that list.
It’s possible that almost every player that is cut from the roster will be a defenseman. Each forward on the camp list has appeared in at least one game for the Flyers this season.
It will be able two weeks before we find out the team’s finalized roster for the postseason. But the biggest news to come away from this? Flyers hockey is officially back.