We are just days away from the first Philadelphia Flyers game of the 2023-24 season and it is starting to feel more real than ever as the team announced the roster to start what should be an interesting year.
The Flyers are going to be starting out the season with a roster make-up of 13 forwards, seven defensemen, and three goaltenders to completely fill the 23-man limit.
Forwards
Cam Atkinson, Bobby Brink, Noah Cates, Sean Couturier, Nic Deslauriers, Joel Farabee, Tyson Foerster, Morgan Frost, Garnet Hathaway, Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton, Ryan Poehling, Owen Tippett
Defensemen
Emil Andrae, Travis Sanheim, Marc Staal, Sean Walker, Cam York, Egor Zamula
Goaltenders
Sam Ersson, Carter Hart, Felix Sandstrom
To start the season, Ryan Ellis (of course) and Rasmus Ristolainen have been placed on Injured Reserve, and forward J.R. Avon has been placed on the Injured Non-Roster List.
Obviously, the interesting bits about this group of players is the young prospects making the team. We all knew that at least one forward would, someone like Foerster or Brink, but with the team recently waiving Wade Allison and clearing up another spot in the lineup, both of those named wingers are getting their chance to start their season in the NHL.
It’s not some forward prospects making the opening roster, though. Emil Andrae has certainly impressed and we knew that the front office loved the 21-year-old blueliner, but not this much. After finishing a very good SHL season and playing just 10 AHL games last year, Andrae is getting his shot on an NHL blue line. Now it is his opportunity to play well enough to not get sent down to Lehigh Valley after Ristolainen is healthy enough to return to action.
Behind all these interesting skaters, there will be an oddly-shaped, three-headed monster in between the pipes to start the year. It was expected Sandstrom would be waived and sent down to the AHL before this group was finalized, but it turns out we were all wrong. There are some theories as to why this is happening, but before GM Daniel Briere (or someone else) clarifies, we all just have to guess that they either want them all to play games, or that they don’t want to lose Sandstrom to a waiver claim and have every other team finalize their roster before they make the move.
This group of players could look completely different in a week or so, but this is what the Flyers will be starting out the 2023-24 season with.
Philadelphia opens the season on Thursday against the Columbus Blue Jackets and play their first home game next Tuesday, hosting the Vancouver Canucks.
