Report: Luca Sbisa back to juniors

UPDATE: I can see through the wonderful powers of the internet that there are a lot of visitors viewing this post from an outside link. I'd like to point you to a new post, which you can see by heading to the home page, which updates Sbisa's status a bit.

The link is French, but here's what it says, roughly translated.

The Swiss defenderLuca Sbisa was sent to his junior club, the WHL's Lethbridge Hurricanes. Sbisa's ice time had strongly decreased following an incident in late December involving a broken alarm clock, which caused him to miss a team meeting. He stayed with the Flyers for so long largely in part to injuries on defense.

In 38 NHL games, Sbisa had seven assists and was rated a minus-7 with 36 penalty minutes.

Sbisa, 18-years-old, cannot be sent to the AHL because he has a standing contract with his junior team until he is 20.

The news is not yet official.
Read the whole story, in French, here.

This is a good move in my eyes since Sbisa has not been playing regularly with the Flyers lately. I'd rather have him leading Lethbridge to a Memorial Cup than sitting in the Philadelphia press box. The rule states, however, that if a player is at the NHL level for 40 games, a year is taken off of their contract. There is a discrepancy, however, on if that's number of games played or number of games on the roster. Sbisa has been on the roster for all of the Flyers 46 games so far this season, but he's only played in 38.

If he is passed that 40 game mark, this was a seriously blunder by Paul Holmgren. It is completely unacceptable to let a year come off his contract, especially since he's been a healthy scratch so often lately.

UPDATE: Sbisa played last night for Lethbridge. Weird that the Flyers haven't said anything, and presumably now they wont say anything... Apparently he was on the roster last night, but did not play. No word on if he'll play tonight against Red Deer.