With roster spots tight, two of the Flyers bubble players are impressing early on in camp.
While almost everyone appears to be heading to Toronto, there are only a few open spots on the Flyers playoff roster. It very well may only be one forward spot and one defensive spot up for grabs.
Two of the players fighting to make it in the lineup are Joel Farabee and Shayne Gostisbehere. It looks like Farabee has the inside track on a second-line wing role. He has been there since the beginning of camp.
Gostisbehere has a tougher road ahead of him. He has been skating as part of the extra defensive pairings. But Alain Vigneault has been impressed with what he has seen from the young defensemen.
"“I’ve really liked Ghost on the ice. He’s got more jump than I expected coming back from that second surgery” about seven weeks ago. “He’s got a lot of pop, a lot of jump on the ice. That’s very good for us as a team.”"
The surgery that Vigneault mentioned was Gostisbehere’s second knee surgery. Both were arthroscopic, but were done on separate knees. He is about seven weeks removed from the last one. The previous one took place in January.
He wasn’t able to do much skating before the Flyers met for training camp. Vigneault is expected to make some tweaks to the line combinations on Sunday. It’s possible that Gostisbehere gets a chance to move up in the lineup.
Farabee has looked good on a line with Kevin Hayes and Travis Konecny. The three make an intriguing trio. A combination of high-speed playmaking could make that line dangerous to play against if they were to play in a game together.
The coaching staff was clearly impressed with the way Farabee came into camp. He has all of the time he wants to show that he belongs in the starting lineup come August.
With another week to go in training camp, we will likely see some other line combinations. Vigneault mentioned using the exhibition game and round robin to test out what he wants to see come the opening round.
Farabee looks almost certain to be part of that group. Gostisbehere will have a bit more to do to make it, but he’s on the right track.