Caleb Weiler
The Philadelphia Flyers visited Canada for their last two games, playing game against both the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday and Saturday, respectively. They lost a stunner in Ottawa – mostly thanks to poor officiating and goaltending – but came back against the Maple Leafs for a strong 4-2 win.
The short trip away from home came at a cost. Shayne Gostisbehere suffered an “upper-body injury” after a brutal hit from the Leafs’ Leo Komarov drove him headfirst into the boards Saturday night. There was no call on the play and no supplementary discipline after the game for Komarov.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=211yznVahtk
The Flyers are already short on defense after losing Andrew MacDonald for 4-6 weeks and now Ghost will be out for an unknown amount of time.
At this point, he will at least miss Monday night’s home game against the Arizona Coyotes, as the Flyers recalled Samuel Morin Sunday night. Morin will presumably make his season debut Monday with Ghost out of the lineup indefinitely.
Flyers fans will see three rookie defensemen and yet another partner for Ivan Provorov. It is going to be a tough task for head coach Dave Hakstol moving forward deciding on the best pairings. Provorov played over 27 minutes against the Leafs Saturday night after Ghost went down, it is possible we see Hagg moved up to the top pair.
The Flyers are going up against the only team in the league without a win this year in the Coyotes, but they still have a solid squad and it will not be a cakewalk by any means for the decimated Flyers squad.
Nolan Patrick has also been out since taking a hit from Chris Wagner against the Ducks last Tuesday.
The Flyers are going to have to band together in order to put a squad on the ice that is going to have some chemistry with all of the injuries that are happening right now. There is no update on Ghost but concussions can be a scary thing and he will be out until all of the side effects subside.
The Flyers have four games this week and if Ghost and Patrick miss all of them it could be a very hard week for the Flyers and their fans.
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