[eleven24]

All is not well on the injury front for the Philadelphia Flyers. Just reported about an hour ago on WIP by Glen Macnow, the Flyers injury report is getting longer. Bad news on Forsberg, Esche, and now Pitkanen. *** UPDATE ON PITKANEN BELOW ***

The biggest news was on center PETER FORSBERG who has now been diagnosed with a partial groin tear, not a strain as originally believed. This will put PF on the shelf for a few weeks and put the PF's in dire need of scoring help.

Second, is bad news on ROBERT ESCHE. It is now believed that he has the infamous sports hernia. Today he is visiting with the same doctor who performed the surgery on Donovan McNabb & the Flyers are saying he will immediately undergo surgery and be out 5-6 weeks. (Just another example of why the Flyers length of time out is off. McNabb has the same surgery & is to be out 8-12 weeks)

And to complete the trifecta, JONI PITKANEN is also believed to have a partial groin tear as well as a hip flexor, the same injury Turner Stevenson had/has. UPDATE: Pitkanen will undergo surgery which will keep him out of the lineup a minimum of 4-6 weeks.

Just what kind of impact has this had on the Flyers? SIXTEEN of the players who dressed for opening night have missed significant time so far this season.

The silver lining? How good is it to have the Calder Cup winning team in town? With the Phantoms stepping up and filling in, the Flyers are still winning. While they'll certainly go back to the Phantoms, they are all gaining valuable NHL experience which could come in handy come playoff time.

And oh, for the record... I predicted that by mid-season RJ Umberger would be a mainstay & Handzus would be traded....

[Jlg-28]

man o man , hopefully the team can get by and pick up wins while the key players are out of the lineup , maybe it is time to call boston and see if they want to trade samsonov , leetch and raycroft to us for ZUs brashear and I dunno maybe bundy

[Andy]

Oh man. Poor Forsberg.

We've been playing pretty well. You can't really blame Nitty for the shootout. The Flyguys played really well against Nashville, and you just...can't stop Paul Kariya. So. I think we'll be fine.

[Chris]

Not a good day of news for Flyers fans, the Esche/Forsberg injuries are gonna be BIG, unless the younger guys can step it up even more, we've got a tough schedule coming up.

[tmcc]

One of these seasons, SOME DAY, when the Flyers are healthy, we'll win the Cup. Someday. Injuries seem to plague us like there's no tomorrow.