Simon Gagne had successful surgery on his hip.
Turner Stevenson and Derian Hatcher both had successful knee surgeries.
Eric Desjardins has decided against surgery for the time being.
Flyers trainer Jim McCrossin – “Eric Desjardins was evaluated by Dr. Thomas Byrd at Baptist Hospital in Nashville yesterday. It was decided that Eric’s symptoms haven’t really progressed since he first complained about them. Dr. Byrd decided to hold off on surgery until Eric’s career is done. Eric is going to need surgery to repair his labrum [in his left hip]. He’s got some loose bodies in there too, but at this time Dr. Byrd believes that he’s not going to cause any further damage and if Eric can get through next year that would be great. It shouldn’t affect his play. He’ll have some aching in his lower back but it really shouldn’t affect his play at this time. It’ just rehab, strengthening, and keeping his symptoms monitored.”
So Desjardins is expecting to play one more year. Do the Flyers resign him to a one year deal? If he is playing injured I say no, even if he would become the 7th defenseman. Especially since as we saw this year 7th d can become #4 in a hurry. If he wants to play with a bum hip he can do it somewhere else.
Eric Desjardins – “Talking with Dr. Byrd, he said that even having the surgery, he couldn’t promise that it is going to take care of my back problems so I decided to hold and wait. If it gets worse maybe [surgery] would be considered, but right now my hip is not really causing me any discomfort or any pain. The damage is there, but I’ve been playing with it for five or six years. I don’t see why we should go in and get it fixed.”
He has been playing with a bum hip for 5 or 6 years? Hey Eric, why NOT fix it?
No wonder he has been considerably slower and prone to falling the past 5 or 6 years.
R.J. Umberger who has been playing for Team USA at the IIHF Worlds Championship in Latvia has came back home since he was experiencing ‘head-like’ symptoms, like dizziness. McCrossin states while its possible this could be lingering affects of the hit in Game 1of the playoffs against Buffalo, but they just don’t know.
Speaking about the World Championship, five flyers are participating. R.J. Umberger and Freddy Meyer for Team USA, Jeff Carter and Mike Richards for Team Canada and Antero Niittymaki for Finland. As in the Olympics I am really not big on NHL players playing in other tournaments. With the amount of money we pay as fans to watch them play 82 games a year the risk of injury isn’t worth it. I also don’t think throwing a bunch of guys together to play for a couple weeks is really a team. I would rather see true national teams going at it. That would get rid of situations like missing some better players since the playoffs are going on. Also the situation with Russia, all the NHL Russian (millionaire) players except for Alexander Ovechkin refused to play for Russian because of the coach. Politics and hockey, nice.
The Buffalo Sabres beat the Flyers in 6 games in round one. These same Sabres are up 3-0 against a faster, healthier team. So far old, slow and injured has faired better against Buffalo. Before throwing all the non-fast old guys to the curb we might want to see how the rest of the playoffs play out.