The Philadelphia Flyers, following an 0-3 start to the 2013 NHL season, received two more pieces of unfortunate news in advance of Thursday’s tilt with the New York Rangers- Brayden Schenn has been suspended for one game while Scott Hartnell is out indefinitely with a left foot injury.
“Tuesday night in New Jersey, at 12:37 of the second period, Philadelphia forward Brayden Schenn came from a distance and launched up and into the head area of New Jersey defenseman Anton Volchenkov. As the video shows, having come onto the ice on a line change, Schenn skates down the boards directly towards Volchenkov. Rather than deliver a legal body check, Schenn launches up off the ice prior to contact and into Volchenkov, making contact with Volchenkov’s head.”
The incident was not penalized during the game, and Volchenkov himself suggested this morning that it was just a hockey play, but the video of the incident provides fair conclusiveness to the league that it was an illegal check.
The announcement that Hartnell is out “indefinitely” is more troublesome. Hartnell has just one assist in the three games to date, but he was one of the few forwards that looked prepared for the season (in spite of being one of two who had not played during the lockout).
The organization announced that they will have a better understanding of the timetable for his return by Thursday, at which point they should have the results from tests conducted on the injured area.
There have been no announcements of player recalls at this point. If no Phantom or junior prospect is recalled, Tom Sestito and Jody Shelley will be in the line-up against the Rangers.
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Will Coach Laviolette make it thru the end of January
Any potential Candidates out there
Laviolette is fine. This team right now isn’t playing well and they’re also having a lot of bad breaks.
The only problem is, the team isn’t constructed very well.
Laviolette is “fine” at the moment, but the fact that the organization moved John Paddock from an assistant GM position to an assistant coach position suggests that the leash is relatively short. Ed Snider made statements right before the season started that he expected the team to be better defensively in front of Ilya Bryzgalvo, and he has only so much patience.
I don’t understand how he thought that they were going to be better. By adding Schenn? No one on defense can handle the puck, so they are going to be constantly flailing to get the puck out of the zone and putting a lot of pressure on the forwards. Add that to the fact that you have a ton of young players on the offensive side and you have even shakier defense than last year which is pretty scary. No add that to a goalie that can’t always make routine saves and an inconsistent offense that is now missing Briere and Hartnell and you are going to lose a lot of games. This is going to be a long short season.
They need to clear some cap space however possible including trading Briere and somehow getting rid of Bryz. Too much money for an average, at best, goalie.