Earlier this afternoon, the beat writers following the Philadelphia Flyers on their west coast road trip broke the news that Evgeny Medvedev would miss his second straight game, presumably as a healthy scratch.
Hours later, the team corrected that assumption.
Evgeny Medvedev is flying back to Philadelphia with an upper-body injury, according to GM Ron Hextall. Read more→ https://t.co/I6HmlS0jvi
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) November 3, 2015
Medvedev was sent home due to an upper-body injury of unknown severity, and will miss tonight’s game against the Edmonton Oilers as a result. Most likely, he will at least be out for the remainder of the road trip, which includes matchups with Oilers, Calgary Flames and Winnipeg Jets.
It’s unknown whether Hakstol’s decision to scratch Medvedev for last night’s game against the Vancouver Canucks was also due to this injury, or if that was a purely performance-related decision. Regardless, the Flyers have now lost one of their better even strength blueliners, and are now down to six defensemen on this road swing.
At the very least, the news explains why Medvedev did not come into the lineup tonight to replace Brandon Manning, who had a numbers of particularly brutal mistakes against the Canucks. It also reassures those who were questioning Dave Hakstol’s decision to remove one of the team’s top puck-moving defensemen from the lineup.
