Flyers Name Final Roster; Farabee, Myers Sent Down

(Photo: Mike Kruce)

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

The Flyers had until 5 p.m. to officially submit their final roster ahead of Friday's season opener. With a handful of injuries, it made the cap situation a difficult one to navigate as the deadline approached.

Many of the roster decisions were fairly easy, but there were some prospects fighting for spots that were not going to make the final cut.

In the end, the Flyers final 23-man roster includes three injured players on the non-roster injured list — but not long-term injury list — and 20 active players. There are a total of 11 forwards and seven defensemen on the roster. To complete the final cuts, Joel Farabee and Phil Myers were sent down to the AHL.

Forwards Carsen Twarynski and Connor Bunnaman both made the final roster alongside Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier, Travis Konecny, James van Riemsdyk, Jake Voracek, Kevin Hayes, Oskar Lindblom, Scott Laughton and Michael Raffl. The seven defensemen on the roster are Ivan Provorov, Matt Niskanen, Shayne Gostisbehere, Justin Braun, Travis Sanheim, Robert Hagg and Sam Morin. Carter Hart and Brian Elliott are the two goalies. The three players on the non-roster injured list are Tyler Pitlick, Nolan Patrick and Andy Welinski.

There are a few possibilities for the Flyers roster moving forward, even ahead of Friday's game. While the cut of Myers appears to be through the weekend at least, there is a chance that Farabee could return to the team and that Tuesday's cut was a paper move to appropriately get under the cap. Alain Vigneault had said after last Thursday's preseason game against the Rangers that he would be surprised if Farabee was not in the opening night lineup.

There is also the possibility that Pitlick could be ready to play in time for Friday's game. Pitlick has been a full participant in practice this week and Vigneault said there was a chance he could play.

The Flyers could also simply dress the 20 active players that are currently available, which would give them 11 forwards and seven defensemen in their first game of the season.

There could be more to come over the next few days, but for now, this is the group that will start the season for the Flyers. That said, Chuck Fletcher did say that there will likely be a lot of changes on the roster early in the season.

The Flyers officially open the 2019-20 regular season on Friday against the Chicago Blackhawks at 2 p.m. ET in Prague, Czech Republic.