Flyers make first round of cuts, camp roster down to 44 players

The Philadelphia Flyers’ final roster is at least beginning to come into shape.

First, it’s the obvious cuts.

On Wednesday morning, the Flyers officially announced the removal of 14 players from their training camp roster: Carson Bjarnason, Spencer Gill, Carter Sotheran, Sam Hillebrandt, Josh Zakreski, Matteo Mann, Emile Chouinard, Ethan Samson, Sam Sedley, Sawyer Boulton, Nick Capone, Alexis Gendron, Matthew Miller and Zayde Wisdom.

There were no major surprises. But there were a few interesting omissions.

There was always little chance that highly-regarded prospects Bjarnason and Gill were going to make the roster. Both impressed in rookie camp and earned themselves an NHL preseason game, but the plan was always to return them to their junior clubs for at least one more season, as was the case for 2023 fifth round pick Sotheran.

First round picks Jett Luchanko and Oliver Bonk entered camp far from locks to stick around past first cuts. But both players remain, with Luchanko in particular still very much in the roster mix, if his presence with the main group — filled almost entirely with NHL roster locks — was any indication.

Zakreski and Hillebrandt, who both were attending camp on amateur try-outs, instead were returned to their junior teams without earning NHL entry-level contracts. As for the rest of Wednesday’s cuts, they were all reassigned to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, where they will battle for spots on the AHL roster at their camp, which begins on September 29.

The cuts allowed the Flyers to move to a two-group structure at camp, with a clear divide between those in serious competition for NHL jobs, and those currently on the outside looking in.

Notably, all of Luchanko, Olle Lycksell and Adam Ginning are beginning the second phase of training camp in Group 1, skating with established veteran NHL players (and Matvei Michkov, who per Briere, entered camp as a roster lock as well).

On the other hand, fellow bubble players like Emil Andrae, Elliot Desnoyers, Hunter McDonald, Ronnie Attard, Oscar Eklind and Rodrigo Abols found themselves in Group 2 — the AHL group, implying that they’ll need to especially stand out over the remainder of camp to push them back into legitimate contention.

The Flyers play their next preseason game on Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center, against the New York Islanders.