The Philadelphia Flyers officially kick off their 2024-25 preseason with an away matchup against a Metropolitan Division rival, the Washington Capitals, at 3 p.m. at Capital One Arena on Sunday.

Flyers rookie sensation Matvei Michkov will presumably make his NHL preseason debut on a line with Owen Tippett and Morgan Frost, who he’s practiced with regularly at training camp thus far.

Other vested Flyers, like Joel Farabee, Noah Cates, Bobby Brink, and Nick Seeler round out the gameday roster, while 2024 first-round pick Jett Luchanko gets his first true taste of NHL competition.

The group playing in the preseason game against the Capitals will not skate prior to the game, so the lines below are a rough estimation of how things will play out based on training camp practices thus far.

Flyers Lines

Forwards (12)

Owen Tippett – Morgan Frost – Matvei Michkov

Joel Farabee – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink

Rodrigo Abols – Jett Luchanko – Olle Lycksell

Brendan Furry (AHL) – Rhett Gardner – Sawyer Boulton (AHL)

Defense (6)

Nick Seeler – Jamie Drysdale

Emil Andrae – Helge Grans

Adam Ginning – Spencer Gill

Goalies (2)

Ivan Fedotov, Carson Bjarnason

Capitals Lines

Forwards (13)

Ethen Frank – Hendrix Lapierre – Jakub Vrana

Sonny Milano – Mike Sgarbossa (upper-body) OR Riley Sutter – Terik Parascak

Andrew Cristall – Henrik Rybinski – Ivan Miroshnichenko

Alex Limoges – Eriks Mateiko – Taylor Raddysh

Defense (7)

Alexander Alexeyev – Ethan Bear

Hardy Haman Aktell – Cam Allen

Leon Muggli – Trevor van Riemsdyk

Vincent Iorio

Goalies (2)

Clay Stevenson, Hunter Shepard

Things I’m Watching

The Flyers are icing a relatively strong lineup for their first preseason contest in comparison to the Capitals, who are fielding a lineup mostly filled out with inexperienced but talented prospects. Former first-round pick Ivan Miroshnichenko is a close friend of Michkov’s, and those two will get to go toe-to-toe at the NHL level for the first time on Sunday.

The Tippett-Frost-Michkov line remains intact from the early days of training camp, even though Flyers head coach John Tortorella warned of reading too far into these lines, especially this early into camp. Staying together through the start of the regular season is another thing, but it’s evident that the Flyers at least think they have something here with this trio.

Further to that point, all signs point to Noah Cates, who’s heading into a contract year, centering Joel Farabee and Bobby Brink to kick off the slate of exhibition games. Brink normally played alongside Scott Laughton and Ryan Poehling with his training camp group, so this is a new look for him.

Jett Luchanko actually took some reps between Farabee and Cates on Day 2 of training camp, but it’s hard to imagine he takes live reps in a game setting with clear-cut NHLers who need to use this time to build chemistry.

One last thing to watch is the performance of Ivan Fedotov in goal. Fedotov appears to be the goalie most fans have already written off only three games into his Flyers career after going 0-1-1 with a .811 save percentage at the end of last season.

Personally, I’ve liked his positioning and rebound control early on in training camp.

Between the KHL regular season and the Gagarin Cup playoffs, Fedotov played 49 games before making his shock move to the NHL and rejoining the Flyers. For the sake of comparison, the only other time Fedotov played more than 35 games in a single season in his professional career was the 2021-22 season, when he played 26 regular season games and 22 postseason games for CSKA Moskva.

Coincidentally, Fedotov won KHL Best Goaltender that year in addition to winning an Olympic Silver Medal and the Gagarin Cup, as well as being named a KHL All-Star. The 27-year-old, of course, missed the following season entirely due to military service. Now he’s here.

After a full summer of recharging, resetting, and acclimating to North America (with his new friends Michkov and Egor Zamula), we’ll have a better idea of what Fedotov is about in the coming days and weeks.

“Like I think I said last year, we’re not going to make a judgment on him one way or another in the situation he was brought into and all the stuff going on around him,” Tortorella said of Fedotov on Saturday. “This is kind of a fresh slate for him. He’s going to get some time and then, you know, we’ll see where it goes. Ivan’s going to get some time in that backup role, and we’ll see how he progresses.

“It happened so quickly, and it’s unfair to make any type of judgment on him based on last year.”

The Flyers @ Capitals preseason game will be televised on NHL Network.