Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
The Philadelphia Flyers fell into some bad luck on Friday when they played the Phoenix Coyotes. Not only did they lose another game, but two of their top line players had left the game early with injuries.
Scott Hartnell, who has been playing on the starting line for quite some time, left Friday’s game after the first period and only played a few shifts. He experienced an upper body injury, according to Paul Holmgren and it was later that he said he expected the winger out for at least a week. It turns out from current updates, that it’s going to be much longer than a week. Try about at least a month and perhaps much longer than that, as some blogs are using the tricky “indefinitely” lexicon.
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Hartnell being out for so long will put a bit of a strain on the team. The good news is that he hasn’t been really doing too much on the ice for them this season. He’s been averaging about 17 minutes of ice time a game, and he still hasn’t scored a goal. It’s still early in the season, so that could be why, and it’s also another silver lining to his injury. It’s still early in the season, so that Flyers could still be okay without him.
If it was just Hartnell who had suffered the injury, the Flyers wouldn’t be that concerned, but newcomer Vincent Lecavalier also left the game Friday with a lower-body injury. Lecavalier has been pretty active on the team and looks to really be trying to rally the team. He’s been playing roughly the same ice time as Hartnell, but has a goal and two assists for three points. Lecavalier is kind of known for being injury prone and his age probably also doesn’t help, which is why it was so odd when the team first signed him.
Why sign another aging and perpetually hurt player? Because the Flyers make dumb decisions. Luckily, Lecavalier is expected to be back on the ice within a week.
Deanna Vasso is a Flyers writer for Rant Sports. You can follow her on Twitter, like her on Facebook or join her Google network.
