Practice was over. All of the veterans had already left the locker room, headed for a quick shower and a bus ride to New York for a preseason game against the Rangers.

But a few stragglers remained behind.

Four players to be exact. Combined they have just 189 career games played in the NHL.

Three of them were talking strategy. Leading the way was Travis Konecny. The 20-year-old forward was standing in the middle of the room talking to 20-year-old defenseman Ivan Provorov and 19-year-old center Nolan Patrick.

Konecny was talking to Provorov about working together on the power play. They were talking positioning. Passing. When to shoot. How to position their bodies for deflections. Patrick was taking it in, asking the occasional question, but was definitely processing the conversation.

Provorov and Konecny moved around the room – using a laundry cart as a net to assure they were positioning themselves properly.

Watching from his stall across the room was the fourth player, Jordan Weal.

Weal is five years older than Konecny and Provorov, but they each have more NHL experience. Patrick is six years younger than Weal, yet comes with the great promise of being the second overall pick in last June’s draft.

But, don’t let Weal’s status or limited NHL playing time fool you – he’s the experienced one of this quartet. He’s been through the wringer. He’s toiled in the minors. He’s been traded. He’s been passed over before.

But now, with just 37 games of NHL experience and all of 12 points registered on his resume, he’s secured a roster spot.

That’s what scoring eight goals in a 16-game span will do for you.

“It’s different this time for sure,” Weal told Crossing Broad. “I can focus on the little things more. Now I can just try and get my game ready for the regular season and not have to worry about taking every rep in practice like its do-or-die.”

Make no mistake, Weal was a darling of the Flyers fan base last season. They wanted him to make the team out of training camp. But the coaching staff thought Weal left a lot of meat on the bone in camp a year ago.

“He’s earned [his spot this season] and he’s kind of earned it the old-fashioned way,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “He spent more than a couple years in the AHL. The reality is he probably didn’t have the type of camp that he had hoped last year, but he went to Lehigh and earned it.

“He was arguably the best player in that league for several months. He’s earned the opportunity to be in a different spot [this year]. He works at his game and competes really hard. Right now, like any player, he’s working to get his game to a regular season level a week from now – and he’s earned that.”

He was a scoring machine for two seasons in the AHL for the Manchester Monarchs before the Flyers acquired him and a third round pick (Carson Twarynski) in the trade with Los Angeles that saw General Manager Ron Hextall instantly erase the horrible contracts of Luke Schenn and Vinny Lecavalier by shipping them to the Kings.

At the time, Weal was thought by many to just be a throw-in. That the Kings were paying the Flyers a third round pick to take on those two bad contracts in the hopes of making a late push for the playoffs.

Weal appeared to be nothing more than a guy who was too good a scorer in the AHL but who couldn’t do anything in the NHL – he didn’t register a point in 10 games with the Kings.

He played four games for the Flyers at the end of the 2015-16 season, and didn’t register a point then either.

Once he didn’t make the team out of camp last season, he seemed doomed to be the next… Jason Akeson.

“Sometimes when you are trying to make the team, you put a lot of pressure on yourself to perform with every rep,” Weal said. “It’s nice to not have to do that and just go out there and work on things and get my game ready for when the real puck drops.”

Weal is in that position because he went down to the minors with the right attitude and was among the AHL leaders in scoring for the third time in four years – and fans took notice.

If the Flyers were struggling to score, why not give this Weal guy a chance? What was the harm?

Finally, after the All-Star Break, the Flyers gave Weal another shot.

Another four games passed by without a point. It ran his streak of games played in the NHL without a point to 18.

Maybe he didn’t belong at this level.

But, then came Feb. 28 2017. Game No. 19 of his NHL career – and for all he knew as a bubble player, it could have been his last. But something special happened in this game against the Colorado Avalanche – Weal scored a goal.

Just five weeks shy of his 25th birthday, Weal finally got on an NHL scoresheet. It probably took longer than he expected, but it happened.

A week later, in Buffalo, there were more firsts – a first assist and a first multi-point game, as he scored again.

Later in March, Weal scored a goal in four straight games, including against the two teams who reached the Eastern Conference Finals – Pittsburgh and Ottawa.

He finished with 8 goals and 12 assists in 27 games, but the more he played, the more involved he was. The more he played, the more he became a guy the analytics nerds loved because he drives the play offensively and is a good puck-possession guy.

As they say, it’s a small sample size, but it’s one that the Flyers are buying into.

Weal is pretty locked in on the Flyers; second line where he will play left wing, likely with Patrick at center and Wayne Simmonds at right wing. He’ll see some power play time as well, as he definitely has a scorer’s touch.

Needless to say, Weal has come a long way in a short period of time.

So, as he sat there watching Provorov faking shots from the point and Konecny miming tipping them in between his legs, Weal can remember what it was like to be so young, sweating every detail.

“These guys just got to trust in their abilities,” Weal said. “When you get to this level whatever you are doing at the Junior Hockey or American League level – you are having success for a reason – you just have to keep trusting that, no matter who you are going against.”

Ironically, he’s now become a bit of a sage. There are guys he played with last season with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms who are fighting for a job in camp. And they are seeking out his advice.

“They come to me a little bit here and there,” Weal admitted to me. “I tell them, ‘Every guy has to do his own thing. Every player is different. Whatever you do well, that’s the reason you’re here and you have to do that same thing here at a high level. If you are able to do that, you’ll find a spot.’”

So whether it’s Taylor Leier wondering if he’s having a good enough camp to beat out a veteran like Matt Read or Michael Raffl, or whether it’s a young defenseman like Sam Morin or Robert Hagg dealing with the uncertainty of what appears to be a three-man battle with Travis Sanheim for the final two defensive spots, they can talk to Weal since he’s been in that spot before.

And Weal can sit back and watch – as he did in the locker room with Konecny, Provorov and Patrick – and for the first time, not have to worry about where he fits – which is the biggest relief of all.