{"id":855715,"date":"2026-09-21T18:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T18:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/855715\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T18:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T18:20:10","slug":"flyers-first-preseason-lineup-reveals-some-interesting-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/855715\/","title":{"rendered":"Flyers\u2019 first preseason lineup reveals some interesting plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Philadelphia Flyers are actually playing hockey very soon. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019ll 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\u2019s quasi-tradition and this preseason game will be played in Hershey, PA at the Giant Center.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

First Flyers lineup of the (pre)season is here<\/p>\n

According to PHLY\u2019s Charlie O\u2019Connor<\/a>, the lineup will be as follows for this first Flyers preseason game:<\/p>\n

Zach Aston-Reese \u2014 Denver Barkey \u2014 Porter Martone
Alex Bump \u2014 Jett Luchanko \u2014 Cole Knuble
Carl Grundstrom \u2014 Jack Studnicka \u2014 Matthew Gard
Garrett Wilson \u2014 Riley Thompson \u2014 Noah Powell<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor (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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Back to the forwards, there are some pairings that should tell us what head coach Rick Tocchet is trying to find out during Monday\u2019s preseason game. Off the top, we haven\u2019t seen much of Denver Barkey and Porter Martone on the same line \u2014 just a total of 17 minutes of game time during Martone\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s speed and defense with Knuble\u2019s doggedness and Bump\u2019s finishing. It could be something!<\/p>\n

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,<\/a> and will be getting in some NHL exhibition game action.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Blue line make-up is unknown but has some storylines<\/p>\n

On the blue line, things could get interesting.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know the exact pairings, but that\u2019s 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\u2019s more out of necessity \u2014 with the young defenseman no longer being exempt from waivers and the veteran clearly being acquired from Toronto to be the extra man.<\/p>\n

Oliver Bonk does have a leg up on the rest as he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 and now we\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 which will feature some semblance of Bump, Martone, Luchanko, and Barkey, most likely. We\u2019re just guessing though.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been waiting a while to see the Flyers again and we can\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Flyers are actually playing hockey very soon. It\u2019s been months of pacing around our rooms, staying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-855715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}