With just under a week of training camp now in the books and a pair of games under their belts, the Flyers’ evaluation process is ever-proceeding, and they’ve continued in their pattern of decisiveness, delivering another early round of cuts this morning, as half of the team returns from Montreal after a tough loss on the road.
The Flyers announced that they’ve assigned all of Matthew Gard, Luke Vlooswyk, and Andre Mondoux to their junior teams — with Gard and Vlooswyk returning to Red Deer of the WHL and Mondoux (the last of their camp invites) heading back to Kingston and released officially from his ATO — which has brought their training camp roster down to 52 players in total.
And here, as with the first small round of cuts, there also aren’t any big surprises. As the CHL seasons have already gotten underway, and as there isn’t anyone in this group of players who had a significant chance at making a run at an NHL roster spot — especially with two players just drafted this summer and one camp invite in that mix — perhaps it makes more sense not to draw out this waiting game, and instead rip that metaphorical bandaid off early, and get these players back to their teams sooner, so that they can sooner get themselves settled back in, and begin towards tinkering with and growing their games in the contexts where that meaningful work is going to unfold this season anyway. Notably, though, the Flyers do still have three junior players — Jett Luchanko, Jack Nesbitt, and Spencer Gill — sticking around for a while longer.
This move, too, will also most likely allow the Flyers to cut their camp roster down to two main groups (though now each with a few more extras), allowing the coaching staff running these learning sessions (and also having to prepare for games) to be a little more targeted and economical with their time spent.
The Flyers have two more games on the schedule — one more on the road in Hershey against the Capitals tomorrow night before they make their home debut against the Bruins on Saturday — before AHL training camp is set to get rolling as well, and two more games of evaluating time on deck before we might reasonably expect to see the next round of cuts coming through.
