The writing on the wall has pretty well suggested that this was coming, but the Flyers made their latest round of cuts official this afternoon (this coming after the whole of this group skated separately in this morning’s practice).
The Flyers announced that they’ve assigned forwards Denver Barkey, Alex Bump, Alexis Gendron, and Devin Kaplan, defensemen Emil Andrae, Helge Grans (who cleared waivers as of this afternoon), Hunter McDonald, and Ty Murchison, and goaltenders Carson Bjarnason and Aleksei Kolosov to the Phantoms effective immediately. Along with that, they’ve placed forward Anthony Richard on waivers, and assuming he also clears, he’ll be sent down to join them tomorrow. This leaves the Flyers’ training camp roster at 29 players, and the key battles for the forward spots remaining between Nikita Grebenkin, Rodrigo Abols, Jett Luchanko, and Jacob Gaucher, while the bubble defensemen remaining are Adam Ginning, Noah Juulsen, and Dennis Gilbert, and two preseason games remaining for them to make their cases.
The reinforcements coming the Phantoms’ way are well-timed. With their training camp kicking off over the weekend, they’re just about ready to begin their schedule of preseason games — they’ll begin with their first game on the road in Hershey tomorrow night, and then return home for two final tuneups on Saturday and Sunday. With the first game coming up so quickly, it might be a little too quick of a turnaround to reasonably expect many or all of these most recently cut players to be in the lineup, but we should see them factoring in to a greater degree by this weekend’s games, when we’re able to get a closer preview of what this team is going to look like, as they look to enter a new era, themselves.
The cuts will likely be disappointments for players like Andrae and Bump, who came into camp with a good bit of hype and momentum surrounding them, and seem close to readiness for more full time NHL jobs. But it will be a disappointment that they’ll have to metabolize quickly, to make the most of the opportunity they’ve been given — playing down a level, they’ll all but certainly be given a high volume of minutes to work with, and some more focused time to continue to tinker with their games, to push their developments to the next level. Spots will surely open up as the season goes on, and the next step is to put themselves in a good position to be the first names called to fill them.
