After an infuriating year, which had Flyers fans having nightmares of an incompetent goalie locked in for 9 years, Bryzgalov put together an outstanding string of games. Simply top notch. Then the injury came.
Indications are that Bryzgalov picked up the injury in warmups of his last appearance, but played the entire game against TB, which was not his best game. Despite Homer's word after that game that Bryzgalov was fine, X-rays in fact revealed a bone chip fracture in his foot. The Flyers claim this is a short term, even day-to-day injury.
I am no doctor, but apparently the recovery time from such an injury can vary widely. Days, weeks, or months. Even assuming the best, and Bryz is on the absolutely shortest end of that scale, what is the rush to get him back in practice in 3 days? It looks unlikely he will play this weekend, but it sounds like the Flyers are leaving the door open for him to play Sunday.
No one would feel good about facing the Pens or Rangers with Bob or a hobbled Bryz in net. What exactly is the reward for him returning to practice so soon? The Flyers are all but locked in to the 5 seed, with a slim chance of catching the Pens for the 4th seed, resulting in no change of opponent in the playoffs.
I can't help but think of Pronger last year. An absolutely essential player on the team, looking at an injury that is normally a matter of a few weeks, but the team throws him back into practice because he's feeling good enough to try. Yeah, that turned out well.... More recently, Meszaros was out of action for 3 weeks, then all of a sudden he was getting worse and needed surgery. Now he's out until the end of April and the team will replace last season's team defensemen of the year with a minor leaguer for the playoffs.
There is nothing to gain and a lot to lose by putting Bryz back in this weekend. It seems the team wants to put him back in as soon as he feels is capable of playing okay and through the pain. Fortunately, Bryz assures us he is "tough and Russian." We love you Bryz, but that's not good enough.
Under no circumstances should Bryzgalov play this weekend. He should have multiple days of virtually 100% practice before they throw him in a regular season game. A day or two of "okay" practice with tolerable pain is NOT a sufficiently good reason for Bryz to appear in a game this week.
A Welcome Return
Flyers fans loved seeing Eric Lindros practice with the team the other day. Of course that immediately spawned completely unwarranted comeback gossip. He is currently 39 years old. There are older players in the NHL (Jagr being one), and Eric probably still has the skills to play in the right situation. However for that to happen, he has to be completely concussion-symptom free, and he must really want it (as in train hard all offseason to get ready, and have the desire to withstand the regular season grind). There is no indication that either of those requisites are satisfied.
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