The first day of Philadelphia Flyers training camp began Thursday morning. But one defensemen listed on the 57-man roster earlier in the week wasn’t on the ice. Defenseman Oliver Bonk is dealing with an upper body injury and it’s unclear when (or if) he’ll be back on the ice in the near future.
Injury update: Defenseman Oliver Bonk is day-to-day with an upper body injury.
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) September 18, 2025
Bonk wasn’t listed in any of the training camp groups posted earlier today. He was slated to appear in one or both of the Flyers Rookie Series games last weekend against the New York Rangers. However, he didn’t appear in either game.
“And then Bonk, so it just popped up, he was supposed to play the rookie games and then something upper body popped up on him,” Briere said Tuesday during his presser about the upcoming season and training camp. “We thought he’d be fine to play the next game and things are not moving as quickly as we expected so we had some images taken this morning, we’re just waiting for the doctors to give us a little more of an update once they are able to read it all.”
It’s not clear if Bonk will be participating in any part of the early portion of training camp if he’s injured. Or when the imaging that was scheduled will be done or when the team will get the results. Bonk was skating on Tuesday but was seen wearing a non-contact jersey, meaning he wasn’t quite 100 per cent.
Oliver Bonk is practicing in a non-contact jersey. He was not in one when he was on the ice yesterday.
— Siobhan Nolan (@SGNolan) September 16, 2025
What the injury does is definitely put Bonk behind the eight ball in terms of him making a strong case to make the Flyers when the regular season starts. With the defense corps of Travis Sanheim, Cam York, Jamie Drysdale, Nick Seeler virtual locks to be with the club (barring injury) when the season starts Oct. 9, two (or three) spots would be left open with Egor Zamula, Dennis Gilbert, and Noah Juulsen vying for those spots. With Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet and his staff unable to see what Bonk can do, it would make the road that much harder for Bonk to end up with the big club and survive the final cuts.
For now, it seems the biggest concern is that Bonk isn’t dealing with a long-term injury or one that might require surgery to resolve. It would be foolish for the Flyers to risk aggravating whatever the issue is and the problem becoming something that costs Bonk a few months of the year or possibly the entire season.
Bonk played 52 games last season for the London Knights, scoring 11 times and adding 29 assists. He also had a fantastic playoff, garnering 14 points in 17 games (two goals, 12 assists). It’s most likely that Bonk will end up playing with Lehigh Valley in the American Hockey League to hone his game and get some playing time.
