Joel Farabee
Before the puck drops on the Flyers 2021-22 season, their busy offseason and several new faces bring about a number of storylines. Let’s take a look at 10 storylines that are worth watching this season for the Flyers.
The Flyers claimed center Patrick Brown off waivers, putting the final piece into the puzzle for the 2021-22 opening-night roster. The Flyers final roster consists of 20 healthy players, the minimum 12 forwards, six defensemen, and two goalies.
The Flyers will have more of a veteran lineup again, though not the potential opening-night lineup in its entirety, as they experiment with some new line combinations for the first time this preseason.
The Flyers defeated the Capitals on Saturday night, but it was more than just the team winning a game for the first time this preseason. It was the players that really stood out and the coming together of a bunch of new faces to show signs that this season could be different in terms of the mood around the team.
You can imagine how the result looked when the Boston Bruins, playing in their first preseason home game, took the opportunity to load up with roughly 90 percent of the NHL roster. It’s hardly a way to evaluate how one team looks against another. It did present some early warning signs that need to be addressed and cleaned up with exactly two weeks remaining until the regular season opener.
The Bruins came away with a 4-2 win over the Flyers in the second game of the preseason for the Orange and Black.
Thursday’s lineup in Boston for the Flyers second preseason game will feature a bunch of new players who did not suit up on Tuesday night. Only two players will return to the lineup: veteran defenseman Nick Seeler and prospect Tyson Foerster. Foerster had a solid rookie camp and has turned heads so far, clearly drawing the eye of Vigneault to include him among the regulars.
The competitive juices were flowing with the first scrimmage of Flyers training camp, as the team looks to build more chemistry ahead of the preseason opener on Tuesday.
In addition to more work on the ice for the Flyers, Dave Scott, Governor of the Flyers, gave his state of the team in a press conference on Saturday morning.
The message at the start of Flyers training camp is that the team has “something to prove,” words written on t-shirts worn by Alain Vigneault and several players. That message rang loud and clear as the team gets to work in training camp.
