What will the Flyers' and Phantoms' goaltending pictures look like at the start of the 2018-19 season? More important and unanswerable is how will the outlook shape up in the spring for the stretch drive and, hopefully, the playoffs.As of now, the Flyers are proceeding with the status quo intact at the NHL level: Brian Elliott is the 1A half of the projected tandem with Michal Neuvirth the 1B. There remain, however, health question marks around both players.On exit day after the Flyers' playoff loss to Pittsburgh, Elliott admitted that he returned a little early from core muscle surgery to get into the final two regular season games and then start Games 1-4 of the playoff series against Pittsburgh. As late as early March he still could not even pull on his socks or tie his own shoes. Agonizing rehab -- with the requisite tearing of internal scar tissue -- followed. Elliott took extensive treatment after practices and games.Side note: This is a normal, albeit painful, facet of coming back from core muscle/ sports hernia surgeries. It is something that Flyers right winger Wayne Simmonds will also have to deal with as he prepares for next season.After the Flyers' series against Pittsburgh, Elliott underwent a clean-out procedure to deal with the torn scar tissue from his rehab from the initial procedure. He said in exit day that his normal off-season preparation timetable was going to have to be pushed back a bit but he was confident he would be fine for training camp and the start of next season. Several weeks ago, Flyers general manager Ron Hextall provided an update that Elliott was proceeding on schedule and had not had any setbacks.The real question mark with the 33-year-old Ellliott (an unrestricted free agent next summer) is how much of a workload he can handle next season. Even in missing two-plus months last season, he appeared in 43 games. During a stretch that spanned much of November into January, both due to necessity (Neuvirth's injury-related unavailability, and the Flyers climbing out of a 10-game winless streak) and his own strong play, Elliott was starting on an every-game basis. That was not the plan heading into last season, and it's not the plan now.Neuvirth is three years younger than Elliott. Nevertheless, his health is an even bigger question mark. It's not specifically because he underwent arthroscopic surgery on both hips this offseason and had recurring hip/groin issues last season. In an of itself, that is not especially worrisome. The big-picture concern is that the athletically gifted but inconsistent Czech netminder has never been able to stay healthy for an entire season at the NHL level.It's not a question of talent with Neuvirth. He also has lots of motivation this summer, because he's an unrestricted free agent next summer and is likely to be moving on elsewhere by the 2019-20 season, if not sooner.For lengthy stretches last season, Neuvirth was simply unavailable. He spent much of the campaign on IR, which pressed Phantoms call-up Alex Lyon into backup duty to Elliott and then into split-time starting duty after Elliott also went down and the since-departed Petr Mrazek was wildly inconsistent following his acquisition via a trade with Detroit.Neuvirth returned during the playoffs. He admitted during exit day that he was still less than fully healthy when he returned to provide relief goaltending in Game 4 of the Pittsburgh series and then started Games 5 and 6, but added, "it's playoffs, no one is 100 percent. You play through the pain."After undergoing the arthroscopic procedures on his hips, Neuvirth, like Elliott, planned to spend a portion of the offseason in the Philadelphia area to rehab. He also hired a new trainer (for the third time in his career). His plan was to spend much of the remaining offseason in Kelowna, British Columbia, training under the auspices of Adam Francilia. Among others, NHL goaltenders Connor Hellebuyck, Devan Dubnyk, Thomas Greiss, James Reimer and Eddie Läck have trained under Francilia.As with Elliott, Hextall recently said that Neuvirth was coming along according to the plan that had been set at the start of the offseason. He, too, is expected to ready for the start of the season barring any new injuries.That, of course, is the big caveat. New trainer and revised conditioning regimen aside, Neuvirth has never been able to avoid injury (and then, all too frequently, a reinjury or a new issue) in any NHL organization for whom he's played. That makes Neuvirth a tough player to trade before the season, especially when there are some good veteran goaltenders, including ex-Flyers netminder Steve Mason, sitting unsigned on the unrestricted free agent market.Assuming both Elliott and Neuvirth make it into the regular season healthy, that creates a crowd in the Lehigh Valley Phantoms' goaltending picture. The Flyers aren't going to carry three goalies at the NHL level, so Lyon would return to the Phantoms if Elliott and Neuvirth are both available to start the season.Lyon was stellar during the Calder Cup playoffs for the Phantoms and basically swapped spots with Anthony Stolarz -- largely through Lyon's own strong play for much of the 2017-18 while Stolarz lost virtually the entire season due to a second torn knee meniscus within a half-year span; the reinjury occurred off the ice during normal daily activities.During his NHL recall, Lyon competed hard (he outcompeted Mrazek, quite frankly, which is why Lyon ended up getting tabbed for some big-game starts) and worked his tail off. It wasn't always pretty. There were games where the rookie was mechanically locked in but there were also stretches where he'd commit early, have issues sealing off the short-side post or take himself out of position and be vulnerable to back-door plays. Lyon had his share of puck luck go his way in a few appearances where he has feeling his way until he settled into a rhythm. Even so, the bottom line is that Lyon held his own at the NHL level and excelled in the AHL at the most important times of the season. He battled and battled some more.If not for the arrival of highly touted prospect Carter Hart for his first pro season, Lyon would be the clear-cut No. 1 goalie for the Phantoms and the obvious first callup option to the NHL. Stolarz, now reportedly fully healthy, will aim for a bounceback season in trying to regain the form he showed in 2016-17 (when he, like Lyon this past year, got into some NHL games and played well overall).In order to do so, Stolarz will need a place to play. The ECHL's Reading Royals are not an option. Stolarz is no longer under entry-level NHL contract and, under the terms of NHL's Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the NHLPA, he cannot be assigned to an ECHL team without his permission. He's established enough as a pro by this point that, except for a brief rehab stint simply to get into a game or two before returning to the Phantoms, there's no reason for him to agree to such a plan.There is a possibility of loaning Stolarz to another AHL team to alleviate overcrowding and to allow all three goalies -- Stolarz, Lyon and Hart -- to get playing time. However, Hextall is understandably not wild about the idea of loaning out an NHL roster player to a farm team of a competing organization.As for Hart, while many Flyers fans want to expedite his NHL arrival or, at the very least, to see him installed as the Phantoms' undisputed starter, that scenario is unlikely right off the bat. He is more likely to be in a split-time arrangement early in the season with either Lyon or Stolarz. I don't think the Phantoms will go into the season with all three on the active roster, even if it means Stolarz gets loaned.Simply because Stolarz is coming off of two bouts of a significant injury to the same knee, he is probably not a good candidate for trade right now. The Flyers certainly could trade Lyon if they decided to do so, but he has internal value both as a potential AHL 1A/ NHL 3rd option if both Elliott and Neuvirth hold up physically or as an NHL backup/1B if there's an injury or if the Flyers can make a trade that involves Neuvirth.For the 20-year-old Hart to make the NHL roster to start the season, it would take a perfect storm of events: he plays lights out, and there are injuries among the vets. More realistically, he will push this season to advance from a split-time tandem starter with the Phantoms to gain more of an undisputed starting AHL role. The next step after that, possibly as soon as 2019-20 in his second pro year, would be to seriously challenge for an NHL job with the contracts of Elliott and Neuvirth expiring.Hart's play over a sustained stretch will dictate how fast his advances into the NHL picture. It's hard to imagine a realistic scenario -- even with as many question marks as there are now -- in which he'd be in an NHL tandem this soon or immediately unseats Lyon/Stolarz to become the Phantoms' primary starter in the first half of his rookie pro season.Over the long-term, of course, the hope is that Hart advances quickly and then his career takes off in the NHL. A year from now, Felix Sandström (who is under NHL entry-level contract and will have the first season burned while on loan to his SHL team in Sweden) will be entering the Phantoms' goaltending picture. By that point, hopefully, Hart will be making his move to stake down an NHL job. It can't be scripted out, though.Everything starts anew for Hart now that he's playing pro hockey. His record-shattering junior hockey career won't win him an NHL job in and of itself. What it does do, though, is offers hope for a long-term solution in goal for the Flyers if he lives up to high expectations.**************1) Congratulations go out to famed LCB Line right winger Reggie Leach for his selection to the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame's induction class of 2018. The induction ceremony will take place at the SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia on Nov. 1.2) Over on the Flyers' official website, I wrotelooking at the three keys to Morgan Frost being deemed NHL-ready: adding muscle, fine-tuning his pacing to NHL level, showing that he can win battles without the puck when he's giving away size/muscle. He won't have the puck as much he's accustomed to at the OHL level and he'll more regularly be up tougher opposition to check when he doesn't have the puck. There are other subtle adjustments as well, but those are the big areas to watch.One of the concerns the Flyers have with Frost as a roster candidate for the 2018-19 season is the possibility that, even if he has a good training camp and start to the season, that he'd hit a wall around midseason and then struggle. This is a big reason why the Flyers want to see him mature physically before he's placed in the NHL.If Frost has a huge preseason, there may be a counterargument to the concern that he's still too slight: Is Frost really that much less physically mature than Mitch Marner, Clayton Keller or Brayden Point were as rookies? While Frost didn't go into his 2017 Draft year touted to nearly the same extent as the first two names, he's come a long way over the past year.The most likely scenario with Frost is that the Flyers return him to the Soo Greyhounds for one more OHL season plus a strong shot at a Team Canada spot for the World Junior Championships. Following the 2015 Draft, Travis Konecny led the Flyers in preseason scoring and nevertheless went back to the OHL for his draft-plus-one season. While Frost's situation isn't exactly comparable (he's a draft-plus-two), what is comparable is that the Flyers will go by the timetable the organization deems best for the player and preseason points alone won't win Frost an NHL spot for opening night.As a player the Flyers project as a center even at the NHL level (whereas Konecny was projected as a wing despite playing both center and wing in junior hockey), Frost is going to have to clear a pretty high bar in convincing Dave Hakstol and Ron Hextall that his entire 200-foot game -- as good as his overall game it is at the OHL level -- is ready to transfer to the NHL. If it's "only" Frost's passing/playmaking that they feel is NHL-ready (which, quite frankly, is hard to dispute), he's still probably going to spend one more year in junior hockey and one more summer of physical training thereafter.3) The new edition of FlyerBuzz on Flyers Radio 24/7 is the first installment of a summer series in which Flyers prospects talk about their 2017-18 seasons and goals for next season. Wade Allison updated his recovery progress after undergoing ACL surgery. Tanner Laczynski discusses the Frozen Four and his experience at Development Camp. Frost talks about his OHL MVP runner-up season and the highlights of the Soo Greyhounds' magical (until a heartbreaking loss in the OHL Finals) season. In the final segment, Brian Smith and I discuss Frost in-depth.To download the show,