Flyers make final roster cuts, Jett Luchanko appears to make the team

Barring a last-minute change of heart this weekend, 18-year old Jett Luchanko will begin the 2024-25 season on the Philadelphia Flyers’ NHL roster.

On Friday afternoon, the Flyers announced a new round of 14 cuts to their training camp roster, which stood at 37 entering the day. Olle Lycksell and Anthony Richard were placed on waivers with the intention of assigning them to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms (assuming they are not claimed). Denver Barkey and Oliver Bonk were returned to their junior hockey teams. And then 10 other players — Rodrigo Abols, Oskar Eklind, Samu Tuomaala, Emil Andrae, Adam Ginning, Helge Grans, Hunter McDonald, Aleksei Kolosov and Cal Petersen — were sent down to the Phantoms as well.

That leaves 23 players left in camp — a perfect number for a 23-man roster. And Jett Luchanko is still one of them.

Final rosters are not due until Monday at 5 PM, so it’s theoretically possible that the front office has a change of heart. After practice, John Tortorella noted that roster discussions were ongoing, and claimed that final decisions had not been made as of yet. But Luchanko has skated with the main group since the first cutdown two weeks ago. He was the only bubble player to continue to skate with the NHL players over the past two days, while the coaching staff has worked on systems.

At this point, it’s difficult to envision a scenario where Luchanko isn’t with the big club to start the year.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Luchanko is destined to stay. The first year of Luchanko’s NHL entry-level contract only counts if he plays 10 games or more with the club; if he plays in nine or fewer, he could be sent back to the Guelph Storm (his OHL team) and his NHL contract would begin in 2025-26. That’s a real possibility.

But at least to start the season, it appears Luchanko is going to get a real look. He’s practiced as the 3C on a line with Joel Farabee and Bobby Brink the past two days, and Tortorella even intimated on Friday that he might receive power play time to start. The coaches appear intent on giving Luchanko every chance to impress.

As for the rest of the roster, there were no real surprises. All of Sean Couturier, Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, Tyson Foerster, Morgan Frost, Matvei Michkov, Ryan Poehling, Scott Laughton, Garnet Hathaway, Nicolas Deslauriers, Noah Cates, Brink and Farabee made the roster up front. On defense, all of Cam York, Travis Sanheim, Jamie Drysdale, Nick Seeler, Rasmus Ristolainen, Egor Zamula and Erik Johnson remain as well. And the goalie tandem appears set in stone with Sam Ersson and Ivan Fedotov. That’s 14 forwards, seven defensemen, and two goalies.

The Flyers appear to have their opening night roster ready to go. The puck drops on their first game in Vancouver on Friday at 10 PM EST.