(Kevin Durso/Sports Talk Philly)
By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 
The roster is nearly set as the Flyers head into their season opener on Wednesday night. Nearly.
The Flyers have basically narrowed things down, but 24 players still remain on the roster after two weeks of preparation, experimentation and deliberation with the goal of making the playoffs in mind.
In addition to a number of veterans, there are going to be plenty of new faces on the roster. This time of year and the decisions Ron Hextall and Dave Hakstol make can cause great debates among fans, so here is an analysis of the Flyers (almost) final roster and how it came to be.
The Flyers top two lines remained the same for a good stretch of the preseason. Claude Giroux continued to play on the wing with Sean Couturier and Jake Voracek rounding out the top line. Nolan Patrick was still centering Jordan Weal and Wayne Simmonds on the second line.
The third line was centered by Valtteri Filppula with Dale Weise and Travis Konecny on the wings. The fourth line had Scott Laughton centering Taylor Leier and Michael Raffl. Matt Read, Jori Lehtera and Oskar Lindblom were the extra forwards and healthy scratches for the final preseason game on Sunday.
The defensive pairings for Sunday’s game saw Ivan Provorov and Andrew MacDonald together, Shayne Gostisbehere and Robert Hagg together, Radko Gudas and Brandon Manning together and Sam Morin and Travis Sanheim together as healthy scratches.
The pairings defensively didn't provide as much clarity as the forwards did.
With two cuts remaining heading into Sunday’s game, it was obvious that the Flyers will have one forward and one defenseman to cut by Sunday's end. When Lindblom did not play on Sunday, for the third time in the last four preseason games he did not play, it was the writing on the wall indicating that he would be AHL bound.
The Flyers made that move official following the game.
The early belief is that the final defensive spot comes down to the fourth pairing of Morin or Sanheim. Given Morin's experience and overall strong camp, Sanheim is the projected odd-man out, though nothing is known yet and even more confusion there after Gostisbehere suffered an upper-body injury that forced the Flyers to hold the roster at 24 until more was known on Monday.
So let's assume that should Gostisbehere be good to go on Wednesday that Sanheim gets sent to the Phantoms to bring the roster to 23.
For Sanheim, going back to the AHL would be a somewhat expected move. The defenseman has had a strong camp and preseason, but given the experience of Morin and Hagg, Sanheim was really the underdog among the rookies on the blueline coming in. The Flyers won't want to bury Sanheim on a third pairing to start his NHL career, so giving him top-pairing minutes in the AHL will serve him well until a spot opens up.
Whenever that is, Sanheim's time is coming very soon, if not unexpectedly on Wednesday thanks to Gostisbehere's injury.
As for Lindblom, it's a different story. The Swede entered camp with high expectations, without much of a thought from the fan base of not being on the team. And after starting the preseason as one of the focal rookies among the forwards, his role has diminished greatly.
Though he played professionally in Europe, Lindblom noted that the smaller rink size in North America and bigger defensemen poses more of a challenge. Obviously, Ron Hextall's method of letting prospects mature and develop made Lindblom’s start in the AHL more of a possibility. By starting in the AHL, Lindblom gets to hone the skills on North American ice a little more before making the jump to the NHL.
Flyers fans were buzzing with the news that two of the top prospects in camp, who have certainly done their part to try to earn a roster spot, may be left off the final roster and sent to the minors over veterans who simply haven't performed up to expectations in the past like Matt Read, Dale Weise and Andrew MacDonald.
The truth of the matter here is that in both cases, there was no gray area. There were spots open on the blue line and among forwards. Nolan Patrick came into camp and won a spot. What went against Lindblom's case was Taylor Leier, who also performed well during the preseason to win a spot over Lindblom.
Defensively, from the beginning of the offseason, it was two known openings on the blue line for rookies. Morin and Hagg have done their part to earn those spots as well, even if Sanheim has performed admirably in making his case.
Going to the minors would not be a punishment for these players, and Ron Hextall adamantly stated this by saying that going to the minors is “not a death sentence.”
Because let's face it, would you rather them make the team now to start the season, have a few hiccups in their first few weeks and be benched among the healthy scratches or continue to work on their skills with substantially more playing time so that when they come to the NHL, they are completely ready?
The Flyers did that with Claude Giroux. They did that with Shayne Gostisbehere. And in both cases, once they got their chance, there was no turning back.
So in Lindblom’s case, it can only benefit him, and when the circumstances arise that his services are needed, he can come to the NHL, seize the opportunity and perhaps never look back as others in the past have done.
