Carsen Twarynski is still with the team as part of the Flyers’ ‘Reward Club’

In a sense, Carsen Twarynski has already made it.

Not the Flyers. Not yet anyway. But the idea that the left wing is still practicing in Voorhees one week shy of the season opener while his more AHL-seasoned peers continue to be peeled from the big club and dispatched back to Allentown is a triumph of sorts already. It's a testament to how well he listened to Flyers general manager Ron Hextall last September when he was cut early in camp and ultimately sent back to Kelowna of the Western Hockey League for a final year of seasoning.

"I needed to play my game better," the 21-year-old said the other day. "He told me in camp I was trying too much to be a skill guy and wasn't getting down to the necessities of my game. Being physical, playing hard and winning puck battles and all that. And getting dirty all the time. It wasn't adding it to my game. I already had it. But I needed to be more consistent with it."

Twarynski has been that this camp. He's got a goal and an assist in the four games he's played, been a plus-3, been energetic and consistent in each of his shifts. A 45-goal season in his final year of juniors has not dulled Hextall's advice.

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"Obviously I had a really good year points-wise," he said. "But to be able to possess the puck longer and be more mature was a bigger part of my game. And it helped boost my confidence big time."

"He comes up with a lot of 50/50 pucks," said Hakstol. "And because of that, he's been on the positive side of a lot of shifts."

And part of a club that has become a staple of the Hextall-era camps. Call them the reward guys. Last year it was Mikhail Vorobyev, who surprised by making it right to the end of camp before being sent to the Phantoms. This year it's a group: Twarynski, Mark Friedman and Corban Knight all remain with a week to go. These guys were not part of most roster predictions when camp began, and it's likely that they will not all still be part of this team when the season begins in Las Vegas on Oct. 4.

But Knight's path might have improved with Wednesday's revelation that center Jori Lehtera, already on the bubble, is being investigated by Finnish authorities for involvement in a cocaine ring.

There are seven defensemen in camp with NHL resumes. To have a shot at the team, Friedman probably needs at least one of them to be banged up over the final two games of the preseason on Thursday and Saturday. With an even larger crowd of NHL-seasoned bodies in his mix, Twarynski would appear to need even more dominoes to fall.

And he's OK with that. Because he's already proved he belong. To himself. Apparently to Hextall too.

"It starts on Day 1 with testing," said the GM. "Testing is big. How much time did you put in during the summer? So it's one thing to come here and play pretty good for two weeks. But if you put two good months in the summertime? And you're performing at a higher level? Guys will get longer looks, guys will move up in the pecking order in terms of call- ups if theyre sent down. It is a reward. Kid like Twarynski – he's been rewarded because he's played very well."

Hextall said the absence of Sean Couturier at practice over the last three days, and the absence of  Wayne Simmonds from any preseason games, was just the club being overly careful in planning for them to be ready for next Thursday's opener. The GM said he did not have any timeline on the return of injured goaltender Michael Neuvirth, who worked out separately Wednesday, without goalie pads…