While we all had a clue into what the roster was going to look like ahead of the Philadelphia Flyers regular season opener, the club has made it official today as we’ve reached the roster deadline.
The Flyers made most of their training camp cuts last week, including prospects Alex Bump and Emil Andrae, who weren’t able to impress the coaching staff enough to earn a roster spot many people had pegged them winning during the offseason.
Unfortunately, the Flyers won’t be showcasing their full-strength roster with defensemen Rasmus Ristolainen and Cam York dealing with respective injuries. Ristolainen underwent surgery at the end of the 2024-25 season for a ruptured triceps, while York’s injury became newsworthy earlier today.
So, without further ado, your 2025-26 Philadelphia Flyers:
Forwards (14)
Rodrigo Ābols
Bobby Brink
Noah Cates
Sean Couturier
Nicolas Deslauriers
Christian Dvorak
Tyson Foerster
Nikita Grebenkin
Garnet Hathaway
Travis Konecny
Jett Luchanko
Matvei Michkov
Owen Tippett
Trevor Zegras
Defensemen (7)
Jamie Drysdale
Dennis Gilbert
Adam Ginning
Noah Juulsen
Travis Sanheim
Nick Seeler
Egor Zamula
Goaltenders (2):
Samuel Ersson
Dan Vladař
Injured Reserve (1)
Cam York
Injured Non-Roster (3)
Oliver Bonk
Rasmus Ristolainen
Ethan Samson
For the second consecutive season, Luchanko will start the year with the Flyers, and because he didn’t exhaust the 9-game trial last year that would have burned a year off his ELC, he gets another crack at the whip.
Both Daniel Brière and Rick Tocchet have been on record saying they want to see what he can do with the NHL club before making a decision on whether or not they send him back to the OHL. They don’t want him languishing on the fourth line but could bench him for a few games at the start of the season as they look for matchups to exploit.
Grebenkin is also another rookie to keep an eye out for after a tremendous camp. The Russian forward was stationed next to Couturier for the entirety of camp and was lauded by front office members and the coaching staff for his determination and grit.
Based on the lines from practice earlier today both Luchanko and Grebenkin were rotating in and out, hinting that Deslauriers could start the game against the Florida Panthersif they want to go with a heavier lineup against the defending champions.
On defense, the cat was out of the bag when Andrae was sent down to the minors. The only question remaining was which one of Gilbert, Ginning, Juulsen, and Zamula wasn’t going to make it if the Flyers ran with 14 forwards and 7 defensemen.
Gilbert was originally the odd man out after he was waived on the weekend, however with York’s injury becoming a growing concern, the veteran has returned to the big club after clearing waivers. So now that all 4 have made the cut, it will be interesting to see which one is the odd-man out and becomes a healthy scratch on opening night.
Goaltending was never in question with Aleksei Kolosov and Carson Bjarnason reporting to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The former can take on a number one goaltending workload, whereas the latter can acclimate himself to the professional ranks in his debut season.
Ersson and Vladař will tend the twine for the Flyers in what will likely be an evenly split tandem this year. Ersson will have to out-duel Vladař early in the season if he wants to stake a bigger role in goal after a so-so effort in the preseason slate.
After last year’s failed experiment with 3 goaltenders, the Flyers are opting with just 2 to start, hoping they can finally find some consistency after posting a salary-cap-era worst save percentage of 87.2%.
