I think people don't appreciate how much deeper the Flyers are this year than last year.
Last season we started with one line G - Couts - Voracek, Filppula was the 2C, Simmonds was hobbled, Patrick was a 4C until February, TK was in a funk the first half and couldn't buy a goal, and so on - zero offensive depth. The 4th line had great possession stats but bad GF% b/c they couldn't score to save their lives. Sanheim was over his head, MacDonald was hurt, Gudas suspended, we were recalling players like Alt and O'Neill after Morin went down. Despite solid goaltending, Elliott at .915%, we were well out of the playoff race.
Gudas comes back, MacDonald gets healthy, Ghost gets moved up with Provorov, defense solved.
Patrick finds his legs, is paired with Voracek, and eventually Lindblom comes up, we now have two lines.
This was enough for a great playoff run (108 points pace from January 1) despite the goalies in the second half posting an .899 S%.
Now we've build a 3rd line, and the 4th line should be at least passable with Laughton and Raffl.
If Sanheim takes a step up the 2nd pair should be as good or better.
And it's not like Hagg - MacDonald/Manning was a good 3rd pair the second half of last season.
I don't expect the goalies to post a .899 S% for the season. That would be the league's worst.
So I don't think this is a bubble playoff team, they should get > 100 points, which is a shoo-in every year.
Now if a top player goes down, they'll become a bubble team, but even without Giroux, move Raffl or Lindblom up there and call up Twarynski and they'll still have a solid offense spread over three lines.
The only scrub forward is the 4C and the backups, the only scrub defensemen will be MacDonald, Hagg/Folin if Gudas has any sort of bounce back. And LHV is much deeper than last season with Rubtsov, Twarynski, NAK, Myers, Friedman, Hart, Stolarz.
Note: despite atrocious goaltending and shaky defensemen, they were 7th in the league in GA/60 last season, Hakstol can scheme defense.