Projecting what the Flyers could look like on opening night. Not much has changed from last year.

With the historically-bad 2021-22 season over, the Flyers turned the page. Unfortunately, it’s still the same story.

After going on about an “aggressive retool” in the offseason, the Flyers ended up with ... almost exactly the same roster they started with, but it might be worse.

When the Flyers take the ice on opening night, their roster will feature the notable absences of longtime captain Claude Giroux and beloved winger Oskar Lindblom. It will not feature the Flyers debut of a new star, one to make up for the loss of Giroux’s talent.

Instead, the splashy acquisitions of the offseason include Justin Braun, a veteran defenseman who was already a Flyer until the trade deadline last season, Nic Deslauriers, a gritty winger who admitted scoring isn’t really his thing, and Tony DeAngelo, an offensive defenseman in both meanings of the word “offensive.”

» READ MORE: The 2022-23 Flyers will be ‘hard to play against’ under John Tortorella. And harder to watch.

There will be question marks over the names Sean Couturier and Kevin Hayes, the Flyers’ two star centers who have been recovering from injuries. Even if they play opening night, will they be able to return to the players they once were? There will be even greater question marks over the names Ryan Ellis and Joel Farabee, the former a defenseman who disappeared after a preseason injury took the entire season to diagnose and the latter a young star winger who suffered several injuries last season before getting hurt again in the offseason. Will they be able to contribute next season? Will they be able to recover overall?

And then there’s everyone else, the exact same players who spiraled not once but twice into 10-plus game losing streaks. They’ll be coming back refreshed mentally and physically, but will a fresh outlook and fresh legs be enough? They’ll certainly need the fresh legs under their new coach, John Tortorella, who said he has called all of them to make sure they know his training camps are tough.

Tortorella will provide a new voice and a new level of discipline, which could get the team to another level if it responds to his coaching style. It was effective for Cam Atkinson, and a player like Scott Laughton would seem to respond well to Tortorella. But then there are players like Ivan Provorov, a notably sensitive guy, and Hayes, whose bad habits are well ingrained. Tortorella is known for getting the most out of his players, but is the most from this group enough?

Assuming Couturier and Hayes are good for opening night and no one else gets hurt, here’s a potential opening night roster:

Forwards

James van Riemsdyk, Couturier, Travis Konecny

Laughton, Hayes, Atkinson

Noah Cates, Morgan Frost, Owen Tippett

Deslauriers, Patrick Brown, Zack MacEwen

Defense

Provorov, DeAngelo

Travis Sanheim, Rasmus Ristolainen

Cam York, Braun

Goalie

Carter Hart

The first line includes a center coming back from injury in Couturier, a streaky right winger who didn’t find his game until the final 30 games of the season in van Riemsdyk, and a left wing once again searching for a bounce-back year in Konecny. Couturier is a very good player and should help massively if he returns to the 70-point form he showed before back surgery. Both van Riemsdyk and Konecny found their scoring touch toward the end of the season. Compared to other first lines around the league, this one lacks high-end skill.

Likewise, the second line’s center is also coming back from injury, and Hayes also has a bunch of bad defensive habits he needs to break. Atkinson was the only one with the scoring touch last season, and even his numbers were down. Laughton is a steady, dependable player but not a game changer. He is better suited to a bottom-six role, and should move down the lineup once Farabee returns.

The third line consists of young, relatively unproven players. Cates was impressive last season in a small sample size but is still a rookie. Frost and Tippett have struggled with the consistency needed to become every-night NHLers. Both are former first-round picks, so the talent is there, but neither player has proven himself at the NHL level. This year they’ll have to if the Flyers are to take a step forward.

» READ MORE: Blame Chuck Fletcher all you want, but the Flyers’ problems predate his arrival

Finally, the fourth line features guys more known for their willingness to grind than their skill. One MacEwen or one Deslauriers can make a difference with their hard hitting on the forecheck and in fights, but with two, the holes in the other parts of their game are more evident. Can a line with two big enforcers, neither of whom is an elite skater, keep up with the speed of the modern game? It looks like we will find out early this season. Brown, in the center, was a good faceoff guy and steady in his role.

The defense made an upgrade from an offensive standpoint with power-play ace DeAngelo over Keith Yandle, but it is still lacking star power. And there is the very real possibility that DeAngelo and Provorov clash, which would force Provorov to play with York or Braun again, something that wasn’t sustainable last season. On a more positive note, Sanheim and Ristolainen could be poised to take a step forward in year two together. Sanheim showed steady improvement, and he and Ristolainen spoke highly of each other as partners.

Behind them, Hart still has something to prove. He bounced back from a bad 2020 with a great start to 2021-22 but faltered along with the rest of the team as the season wore on. It’s hard to say how much was his fault and how much was the result of bad play in front of him, but he has yet to show he’s the star the Flyers were convinced he is.

Even more concerning, there’s no real backup at the moment. Martin Jones left for Seattle and there was supposed to be a battle between Ivan Fedotov and Felix Sandström for the second spot, but Fedotov now has to serve a year in the Russian military. The Flyers are hoping Samuel Ersson, who’s recovering from injury, or newly signed Troy Grosenick, who has played four NHL games, will provide some competition for the role.

With so many of the same players, there is the chance for so many of the same problems. And the one thing that stayed true through the season — the locker room bond — may not be there to get them through. Instead of having the leadership and character of Giroux, Yandle, and Lindblom, the Flyers now have DeAngelo, a player well known for his attitude problems.

Despite a bad 2020 season, the Flyers were able to get fans in the stands for opening night last year by convincing them 2020 was a fluke and 2021 would be better. But after an even worse season followed by few changes, that will be a hard sell. The team certainly could be better — a healthy team would make a huge difference — but better enough to make it fun hockey to watch? The roster might look much the same for opening night, but the stands won’t unless the Flyers do some clever marketing to convince the disgruntled fans there’s something worth watching.