Philadelphia Flyers: James van Riemsdyk out 5-6 weeks
The Philadelphia Flyers will be without their key acquisition of the offseason for a bit of time.
After deflecting a puck off his knee in Saturday’s loss against Colorado, the Philadelphia Flyers announced Monday morning that forward James van Riemsdyk will be out for five-to-six weeks with a lower-body injury.
This is obviously a big loss to the Flyers team. van Riemsdyk, or JvR as he’s known, was arguably the second biggest signing this past offseason behind John Tavares. Losing him for just over a month after two regular season games played is brutal.
The Flyers were counting on JvR’s addition to help with scoring and forward depth this year. He netted 36 goals for the Toronto Maple Leafs last season, 25 of them coming at even-strength. It’s pretty safe to say his presence will be missed.
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There are players the Flyers have to help fill van Riemsdyk’s role. It seems that Jordan Weal may enter the lineup for the first time this season in JvR’s absence. Weal, while still talented in his own right, isn’t on the level that JvR is. They’re also completely different in terms of stature and play style.
Weal does have the speed advantage, though. It’s possible a speedy player in Weal could be a spark in the Flyers offense, but Weal has never produced more than 25 points in a season at the NHL level. He’s still somewhat of an unknown at this point of his career, and the Flyers could go with more of a veteran presence by moving Michael Raffl up the lineup or adding Dale Weise to replace van Riemsdyk.
Personally, I’d like to see Weal get a shot. He’s shown flashes of potential the last two years for the Flyers and looked solid in the preseason, as well. As mentioned above, the one problem with Weal has been scoring consistently. He just hasn’t been able to fully put it together in the NHL, but I think with two talented line-mates like Mikhail Vorobyev and Wayne Simmonds could boost his play. Weal and Simmonds played together for a good amount of time last year so there’s some chemistry there, too.
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We’ll find out pretty soon who replaces JvR in the lineup, with the home opener against the San Jose Sharks Tuesday night. No matter who they choose, the loss of van Riemsdyk will still be felt on the ice.