Hockey season is right around the corner as the Philadelphia Flyers open up their rookie camp starting on Thursday.
The Flyers are coming off a very interesting offseason between hiring Rick Tocchet as the new Head Coach, some free agent signings and probably the biggest move, trading for Trevor Zegras.
But, right now all eyes are on the Flyers young guns with rookie camp opening up later this week. For some it’ll be our first look at them in a Flyers uniform including 12th overall pick Jack Nesbitt. We will not being seeing the Flyers 6th overall pick Porter Martone as he will be playing at Michigan St for the upcoming season. One of the other big names we will see is 2024 first round pick Jett Luchanko.
Luchanko played in 4 games for the Flyers last season after making the team out of camp before being sent back to Juniors. This season, many expect Luchanko to make another strong push to crack the Flyers opening night roster. But, it may not be a forgone conclusion that Luchanko is on that opening night roster.
Having been dealing with a groin injury, it might take Luchanko a little bit to get his legs back under him. While he may do everything he can to make the Flyers decision a hard one whether to include him on the opening roster, based on history the Flyers will be cautious when it comes to his health.
Luchanko is a big piece to the Flyers future and while they are looking to take the next step in this rebuild, Luchanko rushing back to make the team could aggravate his injury.
Now of course, all of this is a moot point if once he sees the doctors this week that he is cleared for a full go for camp. Obviously, we are hoping for that as the best case scenario. But if there is one hurdle in Luchanko being a guarantee to make the roster it would be how quickly he can get back to form coming off this injury. Groin injuries are no joke and they can be aggravated very easily.
Some of the other names to keep an eye on as rookie camp opens up are Forwards Denver Barkey, Alex Bump, and Nikita Grebenkin. Those three guys along with Luchanko have the best shot of making the NHL roster. You can pretty much pencil in Bump to a roster spot at this point as the Flyers have high hopes for him coming off winning a National Championship at Western Michigan.
On the defense, Oliver Bonk is a guy that should be on the Flyers opening night roster. The 2023 first round pick dominated last season in London and is poised to be a key part of the Flyers defense going forward.
On the goaltending side of things 2023 2nd round pick Carson Bjarnason is an interesting name to keep an eye out for. Last season he posted a 22-15-3 record with the Brandon Wheat Kings of the WHL with a 2.93 GAA and a .913 SV% with one shutout to his credit. With the Flyers goaltending situation being what it is Bjarnason could have a shot at the NHL roster. Granted, it is probably a long shot with a log jam of average goalies in front of him with Ivan Fedotov, Alexi Kolosov, and Sam Ersson already having NHL experience. If Bjarnason plays well through camp and in the preseason he could find himself as the number one goaltender for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
There will be a lot of things to keep an eye on during the Flyers rookie camp and the start of training camp and that should make for an interesting next few weeks.
-Walsh
The Philly Phan Cave 
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