1:28 AM UPDATE: The National Post, with a hat tip to Kukla’s Korner, reported what was originally reported here on B&P, with an added quote from Flyers GM Paul Holmgren. Holmgren serves in that same role for the Phantoms.

“It was a scary incident,” said Philadelphia Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren to TSN Friday night. “But we just got word from our doctor that he’s clear — there’s no facial fracture. They’re stitching him up — his jaw is fine and there’s no tooth fracture or anything. It’s a scary ordeal, but he’s going to be fine.”

The Phantoms website also updated his condition after the game.

Klotz was taken to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital after suffering a facial laceration and a seizure in a first-period fight. Klotz was alert and responsive en route to the hospital, and was able to watch the rest of the game on television upon arrival. He is being kept overnight for observation and is expected to be released tomorrow after further testing.

This was a scary incident for everybody involved, and I must say that as I left this evening to go play hockey myself, it was a little harder to strap on the pads. As soon as Klotz hit the ice, I said something akin to “damn, he doesn’t lose fights that often.” As the cameras zoomed in on his face, the reality that he was having a seizure set in. I said “oh my God,” and my mom (who wanted me to flip back to Jeopardy because she was that frightened at the scene) said “I’m glad you don’t play in college.”

Thankfully, Klotz is going to be okay.

There should be a video on YouTube tomorrow, but trust me… you don’t want to see it. I’ll post the link regardless for full discloure purposes, but it really was an absolutely terrible scene.

This does certainly give us a different perspective on the ongoing fighting debate, though — an example that hits close to home.

7:49 PM UPDATE: It was reported by the CSN broadcasters that Klotz did in fact suffer a seizure and a “facial laceration” but that he is in the hospital and responsive. I looked at another replay and it looked as if Klotz could have hit his head on the top of the boards as he fell to the ice. Westgarth connected with an uppercut to the chin, which was the blow that sent Klotz down.

Let’s hope he’ll be okay.

7:09 PM Original Post: Breaking news… the Phantoms Garret Klotz was carted off the ice on a stretcher after a fight with Manchester’s Kevin Westgarth immediately following the start of Friday nights’ contest.

A Westgarth punch connected with Klotz’s chin and he quickly fell to the ice in front of the Monarchs bench. The game is being televised on Comcast Sports Net, and as CSN’s camera’s zoomed in on Klotz as he lied on the ice, it appeared as if he was having a seizure, but that is purely speculation as I’m not a doctor and, of course, I’m not at the Spectrum.

The stretcher came out immediately and Klotz was taken off after about ten minutes. There is no word on his condition at the moment.

This incident is sure to add to the ongoing debate about fighting in hockey, and whether or not it should be eliminated from the game.

With Danny Briere falling to injury again, again, again, and most recently again, this season, the situation has been most reminiscent of the Peter Forsberg saga from last year. We were dragged along all season, wondering if he’d sign with the Flyers, as he hurdled ankle setback after ankle setback before feeling better — kinda — and signing with Colorado.

So it would be weird, crazy even,  for the Flyers, currently reliving a similar situation with their highest paid player, Briere, to go after the still-injury-riddled Forsberg, right?

Paul Holmgren doesn’t ascribe to that logic, apparently.

Ed Moran of the Daily News reports this evening that Holmgren has in fact inquired about Forsberg’s status.

“Ah, we’ve inquired about Peter’s health,” Holmgren said. “I talked to his agent last week so I kind of know where they’re at, but I don’t know that he is certain that he can come back.

“As of last week or 10 days ago when I talked to [Forsberg's agent] the jury was still out if he could come back.”

“I know where we’re at in the conference [sixth place],” Holmgren said. “I know that the road is going to become more and more difficult as we get closer toward the finish line. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to look around to try and improve ourselves.

The GM clearly feels that Forsberg would make the team better, and if he’s healthy, I don’t think anybody in their right mind would or could disagree. But, if his potential comeback this season is anything like last seasons, he’ll be out of the lineup just as often as he’s in, and that kind of shuffling in and out can be derailing for a hockey club. Perhaps it was for Colorado, who exited the playoffs in the second round last season.

And we cannot be sure that Foppa will be 100%.

“If it doesn’t work now I’m forced to give it up for good,” Forsberg said.

If he’s not sure of his condition anymore, who is? This has bad news written all over it.

If Danny is going to be out all season as it has been speculated, and the Flyers are to invest in a replacement, it should be someone who is more of a certainty than Forsberg.

Flyers talking to Forsberg; Briere out 4 weeks (Philadelphia Daily News)
Forsberg eyeing another NHL comeback? (CBC Sports)
Briere could be done for the year (phillyburbs.com)

The Flyers are reporting that Danny Briere underwent surgery this morning and that he’ll miss four more weeks.

The Philadelphia Flyers announced today that center Danny Briere underwent a successful surgical procedure on his groin/stomach area, according to General Manager Paul Holmgren.

“Danny had successful surgery this morning to repair a nerve entrapment,” said Holmgren in making the announcement. “His recovery time will be a minimum of four weeks.”

The procedure was performed today by Dr. William Meyers at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia.

Thankfully, the Flyers are performing well without Danny. He’s only played a handful of games this season and he’s been pretty marginal in those games. We’re fine without him. The bigger concern, to me, is that this has been a recurring theme with the Flyers organization over the years, as I commented yesterday. Of course the Flyers would never admit negligance on their part regarding a players treatment, but there certainly has been a pile of evidence mounting over the years to make an argument otherwise.

Briere out at least four weeks (flyers.nhl.com)

5:10 PM UPDATE: Via a text from the Flyers..

Flyers center Danny Briere will be out for at least two weeks following surgery tomorrow.

The Flyers website elaborates more on the situation.

“Due to lingering discomfort in his groin/stomach areas, Danny (Briere) will have an exploratory surgical procedure done tomorrow (Thursday, January 22) by Dr. William Meyers (at Hahnemann University Hospital). Recovery time will be a minimum of two weeks,” said Holmgren in making the announcement.

“I am very disappointed,” said Briere. “It’s been frustrating not knowing what is going on, so we have decided to go in and check things out.”

I guess this voids the suspicion I had this afternoon and Danny really did suffer a sever setback. A bad blow for this guy and the team, and it’s getting to the point where we really have to question the Flyers medical staff more, I think. These sort of setbacks happen with our players a whole hell of a lot — much more than the average NHL team, it seems.

Briere situation dicey; trade winds still strong

1:36 PM Original Post: Sam Carchidi’s article in the Inqy today sheds some light on the subject.

“At this point, one game isn’t going to change much.” — Danny Briere

“He doesn’t feel 100 percent just yet.” — Paul Holmgren

Briere said he was “pretty close to 100 percent” and “confident for Wednesday” on Monday, noting that the games with the Phantoms over the weekend definitely helped him. When the news broke yesterday that Briere would not play tonight, Danny was asked if it was his groin or if it were the salary cap that was the sticking point.

“It’s a little bit of both, to be honest.” – Danny Briere

Holmgren quickly shot that down. If there is any slice of a possibility that it’s the cap and not his leg that’s keeping him out, I’m concerned. If that is the case, which it seems like it is, I’d expect a trade coming shortly. It wouldn’t make any sense for Briere to be held out of the lineup for cap reasons if a trade weren’t on the table, because the solutions are so obvious. Homer said he’s talked to Luca Sbisa and Claude Giroux about possible demotion, and Sbisa has been a healthy scratch in seven of the last 13 games. Demoting Sbisa, Giroux, and Kukkonen would put the Flyers under the cap.

As discussed the other day, Randy Jones has been mentioned in a lot of trade talk, and since this cap situation isn’t being solved the easy way, I’m going to take a guess that Homer is trying to dump Jones. Just speculation of course, but I can see him using the all-star break as time to complete a deal before Briere would re-enter the lineup next Tuesday.

So at practice this morning, Danny Briere didn’t feel all that great. After practice, GM Paul Holmgren said that it’s unlikely he’ll play tomorrow night against Atlanta. Given that it’s the Flyers first game in six days, and also the first game for another five days, it seems to me that if Danny is not feeling 100%, the extra time away cannot hurt him.

But this raises the questions about his weekend set with the Phantoms. Did he perhaps re-injure himself in those games? Or are the Flyers stalling with regards to the salary cap situation? Are they looking for a trade?

Only time will tell. We won’t see Danny until after the all-star break, though.

Also, Antero Niittymaki had the flu this weekend but he’s feeling better. It’s a no-brainer that he’ll be in net tomorrow night as the Flyers host Atlanta. Niitty has, of course, won like 80 straight starts against the Thrashers.

Scottie Upshall and Joffrey Lupul both missed practice Tuesday with the same flu bug, though. I suppose the all-star break is as good a time as any to have the flu ravage the locker room.

“I don’t remember it ever being like this. We were in a situation (in Los Angeles) where we could only dress less than 18 healthy skaters. That’s obviously not a good situation to be in, and thankfully our goalies and defensemen were healthy anyway. The forwards getting hurt now are starting to pile up.”
– Paul Holmgren regarding the current injuries

Let’s try to wrap our brains around all of this.

Goalie Antero Niittymaki pulled his groin in overtime against Los Angeles, and that could be the reason the Flyers lost in the shootout on Saturday night. “It felt really bad. I tried to suck it up. I don’t think the shootout helped,” Niitty said before Tuesday’s game with the Caps. Holmgren added that Antero feels better today but that its still going to be a week until he can return to action. Expect Biron in goal with Scott Munroe as his bench warmer for the time being, just as we saw against Washington. So much for the goalie’s being healthy.

And defenseman? Well, Kimmo Timonen is fine (it’s all relative) but he’s been playing with a chipped bone in his ankle since the Columbus game on December 27.

Now when it comes to the forwards, we already known Danny Briere is out for a while. He’s only played in seven games this season thanks to a groin strain, but he told the media that he’s about a week or two away from returning now. It’s nice that Danny isn’t rushing it this time.

Simon Gagne was hit from behind in the first thirty seconds of the game in Vancouver on the 30th, and thankfully it wasn’t another head injury, but he did hurt his shoulder. Gagne missed two games before returning against Washington.

Joffrey Lupul suffered an abdominal pull in the Anaheim game on Friday and has been placed on IR. He’ll be out at least two weeks. Aaron Asham has a knee sprain and its possible he’ll play Thursday against the Wild, but there are no guarantees.

Those are the regular guys. You know its bad, though, when the guys who come in to fill the injury void start getting hurt themselves.  Darroll Powe had a hip injury but was able to play in the Washington game, albeit only six minutes. Josh Gratton also returned against the Capitals, but like Powe only played six minutes. Claude Giroux suffered a cheap elbow to the head from Corey Perry of Anaheim on Friday (Perry was suspended five games), and while Giroux was able to finish the game, he hasn’t played since. He’s day-to-day with a mild concussion. And finally, Jon Kalinski is out with probably the most painful sounding injury. Holmgren:

“Jon [Kalinski] is actually in the hospital. He had to have surgery on his thigh yesterday because of a contusion on his thigh that we couldn’t get the swelling down. They had to go in and get the blood out of there. So, he’s lying in a hospital with an open wound, letting it drain. We just have to see how it goes, but it’s going to be significant time. Probably a couple weeks.

Desperate times call for desparate measures. Luca Sbisa played 17 shifts on the first line against LA. His linemates were Mike Richards and Mike Knuble. Believe it. Lasse Kukkonen also played a few shifts at forward. Jeff Carter, Richards, Timonen, Braydon Coburn, and Knuble all played over 25 minutes, while Scott Hartnell played just under 23. And they somehow got a point against both LA and Washington. Coburn also played just shy of 30 minutes (half the friggin game!) against the Capitals, while Timonen played 27.

This sucks, but it’s better it happens now rather than later. If they can survive this, as the recent road trip proved they can, it’ll only help them. This is a t-e-a-m. Just keep it together til the help comes, boys.

So back on December 26th when they Flyers started their annual holiday road trip, we all would’ve hoped for a better record than 2-2-2. We thought, “well, Columbus and Los Angeles are two certain wins, and Vancouver, Anaheim and Chicago were certainly winnable. Washington? We beat them 7-1 less than a month ago, we could do it again. Well, it didn’t really go as planned. Columbus got their first ever win against the Flyers, and lowly Los Angeles picked up a shootout victory. But this isn’t bad.

Before the trip, the Flyers sat in second place in the Atlantic Division at 19-8-7, good for 45 points, just two behind the Rangers. If you remember, New York had like 18 games in hand over us (okay, it was three), and the six games in 12 days the Flyers played on this trip helped with in catching up to the Rangers. At the close of the trip, they still have one game in hand and are tied in points with 41, an improvement from the start of the trip.

The first-place Flyers also have taken a gigantic lead over fourth-place Pittsburgh, but that’s in thanks to the fact that they lost five straight (tee hee), with a 6-1 loss to Florida highlighting the bunch. The Pens have gone 2-5 since Christmas, picking up only four of 14 possible points, and their tail spin has dropped them out of the playoff picture, let alone the Atlantic race.

The biggest concern for the Flyers right now has to be the third place team, though, the Devils. They dropped a game tonight to the Hurricanes 3-2, but were the only team to gain ground on the Flyers in the division race since Christmas. They went 4-3-0, earning eight of 14 possible points, gaining two points on Philly. They now sit two points back with a game in hand, meaning that if they win that contest we could have a three way tie atop the Atlantic.

Now many would still say the Flyers 2-2-2 mark on the road was a disappointment, but given the amount of injuries the team suffered during their Western excursion, it’s more than an admirable feat.

The Flyers announced today that Scottie Upshall is going to miss 10 to 14 days with a shoulder injury. Awesome. We’re already down a forward with the absence of Glen Metropolit, and we don’t know exactly when he’s going to return.

With Upshall out and three bruisers taking roster spots, the forward lines look pretty damn bad. Of course, the top two units of Gagne-Richards-Knuble and Lupul-Carter-Hartnell are doing just fine (Carts was named the NHL’s second star of the week, in fact), but the rest of the lineup doesn’t shape up too well.

The bottom three forward lines, before the injuries:

Upshall - Metropolit - Asham
Cote - Powe - Nodl

Asham had his best game as a Flyer against Montreal. He was all over the ice and he had good chemistry with his linemates in the offensive zone, scoring a goal on a nice set up from Upshall and almost scoring on a shot that deflected and broke the glass behind the net. That line was probably the Flyers best in Montreal, but how quickly two games can change things, as Asham has lost both of his linemates to the injury bug.

My guess at the bottom two forward lines, after the injuries:

Nodl - Kalinski - Asham
Cote - Powe - Gratton

Ouch. The Cote line isn’t all that bad for an energy line. I love the element Darroll Powe brings to the lineup. He’s quick and always physical, and he’s even had a few scoring chances. Gratton really brings nothing to the table, though. I do not understand why he’s on the team, barring injuries. His role is filled by two other guys. He isn’t needed.

Let’s compare those third lines though. Nodl has just three points — all assists — in 24 NHL games. He had chances with the big club, but his lack of a quality line partner and his limited minutes just shattered his confidence, and he was ultimately sent down last Friday in favor of Gratton. Well, he’s back, and maybe his confidence will be up and he can grab that first goal, but I wouldn’t count on too much production from the young man.

Jon Kalinski has played seven games with the Flyers this season and he’s yet to register a point. In fact, in 23 games with the Phantoms he’s only got seven points. Why is this guy with the team again? Isn’t Claude Giroux lighting up the AHL? Don’t wanna bring him up this early in his career? Fair enough, where’s Jared Ross? 

We’ve got two lines of all-stars and two lines of AHLers. Great.

Defenseman Randy Jones, who has been out all season with a hip injury, might return to the lineup tomorrow night against Colorado. He has been cleared to play by doctors and he says he’s ready to go, but coach Stevens wants to be sure he’s ready before throwing him in the lineup.

“Medically he’s been cleared but we want to make sure we give him enough time to get his timing and that he’s game ready before we stick him back in, so we’ll discuss that today and figure it out tomorrow,” Stevens told the media on Monday.

“It’s all repaired and stronger than before,” Jones said regarding his surgically patched up hip.

“It’s almost been six months really since I’ve last played a game,” continued Jones, “but more and more everyday I feel like I’m getting more comfortable and getting back to the same speed that I was at.”

The Flyers are going to have to make a roster move to fit Jones in the lineup.

Stevens avoided a question regarding Luca Sbisa and the possibility of the 18-year-old being sent back to juniors to make room for Jones, but the coach did say that he’s happy with the current defensive group, so it’ll be a tough decision to make.

My guess is that whenever Jones does get back into the lineup, whether it be tomorrow or Thursday or even Saturday, it’ll be Sbisa who is the scapegoat. He’s performed better than could even have been expected, but some extra time in juniors can only help him.

Simon Gagne confirmed on Saturday that he will be in the lineup tonight when the Carolina Hurricanes host the Philadelphia Flyers. Gagne took part in an optional skate at the RBC Center this morning and he and John Stevens met with the media afterwards.

Also, defenseman Kimmo Timonen will be in the lineup after he left Thursday’s game late in regulation with a sore shoulder. Matt Carle remains out of the lineup with an upper body injury and did not make the trip to Carolina. -On The Fly, philadelphiaflyers.com

And your projected lines, from Bill Meltzers’ blog.

Gagne - Richards - Knuble
Hartnell - Carter - Upshall
Nodl - Metropolit - Lupul
Cote - Powe - Asham

Timonen - Vaananen
Coburn - Sbisa
Alberts - Kukkonen

Game Day Preview coming shortly…