It’s the first day of what might be a long week for the Philadelphia Flyers. They have lost their starting goaltender Sam Ersson for at least a week and are staring down the barrel that holds some elite bullets. In the next seven days, they will be facing the Carolina Hurricanes, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Florida Panthers. An onslaught of teams that are hoping to lift the Stanley Cup next year and the Flyers are caught with their pants down as they have the most questionable tandem of goaltenders in the league.
Aleksei Kolosov just got here and has looked decent but has still lost games, and Ivan Fedotov is what he is right now — and that is possibly the NHL’s worst goaltender statistically. What a pair of goaltenders.
So, this Monday’s practice was sure to be an important one as they prep for their next three games which will certainly be battles. But an interesting thing happened. It wasn’t just a change in the lineup or an addition to the power-play units or something of that ilk, but there is a mystery player that is skating at Flyers practice.
Per Jordan Hall, there is a player who is skating on the other rink in Voorhees and the most mysterious part of all: The media and beat reporters are not allowed to watch. They have been barred from even coming close to the rink and trying to sneak a peek.
Of course, like Jordan speculates, it could be something as simple as a player recovering from an injury and wanting some privacy. To not see tweets of grainy cellphone photos of him away from the team and skating and trying to feel normal again. The most likely player for this to be is defenseman Cam York, of course, who has been absent from the team since suffering an awkward injury against the Capitals on Oct. 23. The timeline given was a minimum of two weeks and we’re coming up on that deadline.
But York has already been seen by the eyes of reporters while doing some one-on-one work with Flyers’ trainers during his recovery process. Would the team and/or player really bar anyone from seeing him again?
This mystery has now led us down a path to thinking the most exciting thing: It’s a new addition to the team or someone making an insane comeback. We know Ryan Ellis is probably never going to play hockey again, so we can rule that out. But, would it be something crazy like Nolan Patrick wanting to make a comeback with the Flyers for some reason?
Wade Allison was recently let go by his KHL club — is he back? Is it a free agent try-out? Someone like Phil Kessel trying to give this team a scoring jump?
Of course this is all very silly, but this team just never wants to not be boring or entertaining. There is a mystery player that people aren’t allowed to see skate at practice! It’s so perfect for us to just go crazy with scenarios and then it will end up being York or Ersson just testing their legs.
