The 2026-27 NHL season is here.
The Philadelphia Flyers officially announced their 2026-27 opening night active roster on Monday afternoon. The deadline for teams to submit their opening rosters was at 5 p.m. ET, and the Flyers got just ahead of that.
After Oliver Bonk, Cole Knuble, and Jett Luchanko were sent down over the weekend, and Aleksei Kolosov was loaned back to the AHL on Sunday, there weren’t too many questions about who would make the 23-man roster.
The Flyers are going with 14 forwards, seven defensemen, and two goaltenders for opening night.
The forwards, in numerical order, are Garrett Wilson, Travis Konecny, Sean Couturier, Nikita Grebenkin, Alex Bump, Christian Dvorak, Noah Cates, Matvei Michkov, Trevor Zegras, Noel Acciari, Tyson Foerster, Owen Tippett, Carl Grundstrom, and Porter Martone.
The only unexpected forward to make the roster is Garrett Wilson, but that’s likely due to Denver Barkey starting the season on injured reserve. Barkey was injured in the Flyers’ first preseason game and has been day-to-day since. The Flyers also hinted at Wilson making the team when they signed him to a one-year contract on Sunday.
Unlike normal injured reserve, season-opening injured reserve (SOIR) doesn’t have a requirement for a player to miss a certain amount of time. Barkey will be eligible to play whenever he is ready, which is important since the Flyers open the season with a back-to-back and four games in six nights. He is eligible for SOIR as he’s on a two-way deal and was on the roster for fewer than 50 games last season.
This is largely the same group of forwards that the Flyers used last season. Acciari is the lone newcomer after signing a two-year, $5.6 million contract in the offseason.
On defense, the Flyers have David Jiricek, Travis Sanheim, Cam York, Jamie Drysdale, Nick Seeler, Simon Benoit, and Rasmus Ristolainen as options on the blue line.
Jiricek and Benoit are the only new faces, although the former played in Game 82 with the Flyers last season. However, he may have lost his grip on a spot in the opening night lineup after a poor performance in the Flyers’ final preseason game.
Benoit is more or less a replacement for Noah Juulsen as a veteran defenseman who will be a responsible veteran presence on the third pair and a healthy scratch at times. The blueliner was acquired from the Maple Leafs in the Joseph Woll trade, and is in the final year of his contract with a $1.3 million cap hit.
Along with these seven defensemen, Helge Grans has been designated as injured non-roster.
The Flyers were given a goalie scare when Dan Vladar left his preseason debut after just a few minutes with an apparent right arm injury, but Danny Briere and Rick Tocchet both provided positive updates over the weekend, and he’s ready to go for opening night. He’ll be in a tandem with Joseph Woll, which can be one of the better tandems in the league as long as they can stay healthy.
What will Flyers’ opening night lineup look like?
The Flyers were off on Monday, but Sunday’s practice may have been a dress rehearsal for opening night.
Here are the Flyers’ lines and pairs from Sunday’s practice, per NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jordan Hall:
Owen Tippett – Trevor Zegras – Porter Martone
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Matvei Michkov
Alex Bump – Christian Dvorak – Travis Konecny
Carl Grundstrom/Garrett Wilson – Sean Couturier – Noel Acciari
Travis Sanheim – Rasmus Ristolainen
Cam York – Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler – Simon Benoit
David Jiricek rotated in on those pairs, but he might be the seventh defenseman for opening night.
None of those forward trios played much time together last season, but there are certainly some pairs that have familiarity. Foerster and Cates have shown a connection over the years, and Tippett played with Zegras for most of the final weeks of the season and into the playoffs last year.
On defense, Sanheim and Ristolainen played 488 minutes together at 5-on-5, and looked like a legitimate top pair in the latter parts of the season. York and Drysdale also played 482 minutes together, and they’ve both looked great in the preseason.
Seeler and Benoit aren’t your ideal third pair, but they should be able to play responsible defense in their own zone.
We’ll see how the Flyers end up lining up in practice on Tuesday and morning skate Wednesday ahead of their season opener against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night.
