Ryan Ellis out four-to-six weeks, moved to LTIR

The news just continues to get worse for Ryan Ellis and the Flyers. After returning for the first time in nine games, Ellis re-aggravated his injury during the loss to Dallas. After initially being week-to-week, we have have an official timeline on his absence.

While it appears he will continue to rest and rehab, Ellis’ timeline is now four-to-six weeks. Surgery does not appear to be an option at this time, but it is still a big blow to both the player and the team.

Ellis was brought in to help stabilize the top pairing alongside Ivan Provorov. Unfortunately, the two have only appeared in three games together. Ellis played with Keith Yandle in his fourth game of the season. Despite that, Provorov has been playing much better hockey than the prior season. And a lot of that has had to do with the play of Justin Braun.

The two have previous chemistry together as they did play with each other for a large majority last season. So there is a familiarity there. It helps that Braun is off to the best start of his career. He has eight points, besting his totals from the prior year. His seven assists are third on the team.

“Brauner’s been playing well. I think personally I’ve been playing well myself. So I think we’ve been doing well together. And we’re gonna continue to do the same thing until everyone gets healthy. And we’ll see what happens after.” Ivan Provorov said after Monday’s practice.

This also means an even larger opportunity for Nick Seeler as well. He has been praised by just about everyone in the organization for his willingness to work and do whatever it takes, no matter what the circumstances are. Alain Vigneault, on multiple occasions, has talked about how you expect your seventh defenseman to play a lot of games during a season. Coming into Thursday’s matchup with the Lightning, Seeler will have appeared in 12 games. It’ll be more than the last two seasons combined when he takes the ice against Tampa Bay.

For Ellis, it is certainly a frustrating time as he hasn’t truly been able to get comfortable in the Flyers lineup as of yet. A 4-to-6 week timeline could potentially see him out until the new year. With him re-injuring himself in his first game back, it may be safe to give him all the time he needs to recover. The team will have to continue to find ways to manage without him.