The Philadelphia Flyers are actually playing hockey very soon. It’s been months of pacing around our rooms, staying up at night wondering just what the 2026-27 season is going to have in store for our beloved team, and just vibrating with anticipation to actually watch them. And now, we get our first lineup of the season.

On Monday night, the Flyers will be facing the Washington Capitals for their first of four preseason games ahead of their season opener on September 30. The very first bit of action we’ll see for the next several months will be this little exhibition game between the two Metropolitan Division teams. They will be continuing on from last year’s quasi-tradition and this preseason game will be played in Hershey, PA at the Giant Center.

As the Flyers took the ice for morning skate, the game group was revealed and just minutes later, we got some semblance of a lineup to really feed the desire to see some combinations on this roster. There are some real interesting lines for Monday’s game.

First Flyers lineup of the (pre)season is here

According to PHLY’s Charlie O’Connor, the lineup will be as follows for this first Flyers preseason game:

Zach Aston-Reese — Denver Barkey — Porter Martone
Alex Bump — Jett Luchanko — Cole Knuble
Carl Grundstrom — Jack Studnicka — Matthew Gard
Garrett Wilson — Riley Thompson — Noah Powell

O’Connor (that feels weird), mentioned that the defensemen rotated a lot but we do know who else was on the ice who will be playing Monday night.

David Jiricek, Helge Grans, Ty Murchison, Oliver Bonk, Hunter McDonald, and Simon Benoit, will be hitting the ice for this first game of the (pre)season and hopefully some questions will be answered. Joseph Woll and Carson Bjarnason are the goaltenders for this game and the former will get the first two periods, and the latter will get the rest.

Back to the forwards, there are some pairings that should tell us what head coach Rick Tocchet is trying to find out during Monday’s preseason game. Off the top, we haven’t seen much of Denver Barkey and Porter Martone on the same line — just a total of 17 minutes of game time during Martone’s nine regular season games and zero during the playoffs. It can be a really intriguing partnership, as Barkey is the one in the corners, doing some work along the walls or heavy on the forecheck in pursuit to win back possession, and Martone cleans everything up for a whole lot of scoring.

Moving on down, we get a trio of prospects. Alex Bump is very likely to make the final roster but he is starting the preseason tagging along with Jett Luchanko and Cole Knuble, who could very well be a pairing we see to start the season down in Lehigh Valley. This line is by far the most intriguing of the group and could be a whole lot of fun to mix Luchanko’s speed and defense with Knuble’s doggedness and Bump’s finishing. It could be something!

Could Carl Grundstrom and Jack Studnicka also be a Phantoms pairing we see in the near future? Certainly possible. Grundstrom is either going to be the extra forward on the Flyers or someone who can be a dependable scorer in the AHL to start the season. And, well, Matthew Gard has been rewarded for a very solid training camp by not getting sent down to the WHL along with the first round of cuts, and will be getting in some NHL exhibition game action.

And, well, the fourth line is very much a fourth line. Noah Powell has also been rewarded for a good camp and could very well be sent down to Phantoms game before the next Flyers preseason game.

Blue line make-up is unknown but has some storylines

On the blue line, things could get interesting.

We don’t know the exact pairings, but that’s a group of defensemen who are fighting for spots or relevance on the Flyers roster. The only two blueliners of that six that we are confident will be playing in the NHL in the near future are Jiricek and Benoit, and that’s more out of necessity — with the young defenseman no longer being exempt from waivers and the veteran clearly being acquired from Toronto to be the extra man.

Oliver Bonk does have a leg up on the rest as he’s already been paired with Travis Sanheim during some training camp drills and is clearly someone the Flyers want in the top four within the next couple of seasons.

Hunter McDonald and Ty Murchison are in an interesting position as two youngish defenders who could very well develop into solid, physical bottom-pairing blueliners but are somewhat running out of time to get to that point. This season will really determine a lot of where they are at and if they can make that jump — and now we’re getting the first little sample to slightly determine where they are at in the depth chart. And Helge Grans is probably the low man in the group with a bigger hill to climb than others to get noticed.

It will be interesting what pairings Tocchet is thinking of exactly with this group. Bonk will probably feature heavily, but he could very well put one of Murchison or McDonald alongside him to give an opportunity to them. Or, Benoit could very well get the spotlight just as a warm-up for the season. And Jiricek will probably fill out the other top-four spot on the right side in a similar opportunity.

It will be really interesting to see what the power play units look like given this group. Jiricek should get an opportunity to quarterback the top unit — which will feature some semblance of Bump, Martone, Luchanko, and Barkey, most likely. We’re just guessing though.

We’ve been waiting a while to see the Flyers again and we can’t wait to just have some big time takes off of 60 minutes of a preseason game featuring players who might not even play in the NHL in the next few years.