Only the Buffalo Sabres ranked higher than the Flyers in the Sporting News ranking. Their top-spot designation was partially on the strength of landing highly touted Swedish defenseman Rasmus Dahlin with the first overall pick of the 2018 Draft, Casey Mittelstadt with the eighth pick of the 2017 Draft and Alexander Nylander with the eighth pick of the 2016 Draft.

Last year, the Flyers took the top spot in ESPN's ranking of NHL farm systems. This year, Philly ranked second in the The Hockey News' annual "Future Watch" issue as well as The Sporting News' just-released rankings.

Over the last five years, general manager Ron Hextall and assistant general manager Chris Pryor did not oversee a painstaking process to bolstering the organization's farm system in an effort to earn praise from pundits. Nevertheless, it is a nice bonus when a major media outlet recognizes the organization's prospect pool as one of the deepest across the National Hockey League.

Conversely, the Flyers took the second spot despite the fact that none of the players on the top-10 prospect list were drafted within the top 13 of their Draft year. Selected second overall in the 2017 Draft, Nolan Patrick played 73 NHL games last season and is no longer considered a "prospect" despite being just 20 years old.

Likewise, 2014 first-round pick Travis Sanheim (49 NHL games last season) and 2015 first-rounders Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny, who have played two full NHL seasons apiece, are ineligible to be considered in the prospect rankings.

Ultimately, of course, the purpose of stockpiling Draft picks and investing heavily in prospects' development is to produce as many NHL players as possible from their ranks. As some players graduate from prospect status to NHLers, there must be other promising youngsters entering the farm system to replenish the depth. That is how a successful farm system works.

The Sporting News' top 10 individual prospects for the Flyers was ranked as follows:

1. Joel Farabee (LW)

2. Carter Hart (G)

3. Philippe Myers (D)

4. Morgan Frost (C)

5. Oskar Lindblom (LW)

6. German Rubstov {C/RW)

7. Jay O'Brien (C)

8. Mike Vecchione (C)

9. Isaac Ratcliffe (LW/RW)

10. Wade Allison (RW)

In terms of positional depth, the Flyers' most recent Draft was, beyond the first-round selections of forwards Joel Farabee and Jay O'Brien, largely geared toward replenishing some of the blueline depth in the prospect pipeline. After the Flyers selected defensemen in the first rounds of the 2013 (Samuel Morin), 2014 (Sanheim) and 2015 (Provorov with the seventh overall pick), the Flyers' choices in the Draft were heavily oriented toward forwards.

Here's the Flyers' positional breakdown by numbers over the last four Drafts:

2015: one defenseman, five forwards, three goaltenders.

2016: two defensemen, seven forwards, one goaltender

2017: one defenseman, seven forwards, one goaltender

2018: three defensemen, four forwards, one goaltender

Not reflected within this breakdown is the fact that the team's current top defense prospect below the NHL-level, Lehigh Valley Phantoms second-year pro Philippe Myers, was signed as an undrafted free agent after he slipped through the 2015 NHL Draft unselected.

The Flyers have one of the NHL's deepest pools of goaltending prospects, which is only partially reflected by the Draft-by-position breakdown and within the Sporting News' top 10 list. Carter Hart, who will be entering his first pro season in 2018-19, is the most highly touted netminder in the system. However, Swedish goalie Felix Sandström (selected in the third round in 2015) and Kirill Ustimenko (2017 third-round pick) have both shown significant promise at their respective levels of play.

Among forwards, Lindblom stands a good chance of becoming a regular NHL starter within the Flyers' top nine in 2018-19. In the meantime, the organization projects 2017 first-round pick Morgan Frost and 2018 first-rounders Farabee and O'Brien as having top-six NHL upsides as they continue to develop. Hulking winger Isaac Ratcliffe and power forward Wade Allison have blossomed as goal scorers at the respective CHL and NCAA levels.

The Flyers' depth pool is such that some current AHL players who are potential NHL candidates within the next year or two -- such as Nicolas-Aube Kubel and Mikhail Vorobyev -- were omitted from the Sporting News' top 10. However, 25-year-old Phantoms center Mike Vecchione, a Flyers free agent signing in 2017, is represented on the top 10 list.