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Flyers taken back by Joel Farabee’s neck injury

By Ariel Melendez

Mar 25, 2022; Denver, Colorado, USA; Philadelphia Flyers left wing Joel Farabee (86) in the penalty box during the third period against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 25, 2022; Denver, Colorado, USA; Philadelphia Flyers left wing Joel Farabee (86) in the penalty box during the third period against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports /
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All it took was a pinch in the neck to derail what was likely a big summer of offseason training for Joel Farabee. And it took both the Flyers and Farabee by complete surprise.

It was one of the first formal workouts of the summer. Farabee was warming up with some light weights on the bench. That’s when he felt the pinch in his neck. He was then able to get some imagining down in the Syracuse area, where he’s from. After that, he came to Philadelphia to speak with Dr. Jon Yoon, who would eventually be the one to perform his surgery. It was a span of four days from the time he spoke with Dr. Joon to the time that he had the disc replacement surgery.

With a recovery time of three to four months, that puts a big dent in what was going to be an important summer of terms of not only his overall development, but his strength as well. With Jack Eichel and Tyler Johnson having successful returned after the surgery, it helped ease everyone involved that this was something that Farabee could come back from.

Having a surgery like this at such a young age obviously comes with some concern. Farabee is only 22-years-old and presumably has a long career ahead of him. He is a very important piece to this Flyers team. This will be the first year of the six year extension he signed last summer. So getting him healthy and stronger than before is at the top of the list. But that won’t come at the expense of his long-term health.

"“That’s certainly an important part of the rehab; it’s not just getting him healthy, but it’s how can we get him stronger.” Chuck Fletcher said at Wednesday’s media availability. “For me, whether it’s three months or four months, at the end of the day, if he’s ready for Game 1, great. But if he misses five, six, seven games and we can push him a little bit further, that might make sense, too. We’ll make every decision with him based on his long-term health, welfare and development.”"

Farabee missed 19 games during the season as he dealt with two different injuries to his left shoulder. He would finish out the latter part of the season on the ice and seemed eager to begin offseason training back home. There had been no previous instance of this injury and no correlation to his shoulder injuries as well. So this truly took everyone in the Flyers organization by surprise.

And Farabee is already feeling much better just days after the surgery. According to Assistant GM Brent Flahr, Farabee walked out of the procedure feeling good and that everything else was going well in regards to his shoulder during workouts. The unfortunate nature of this new injury is that he likely won’t be able to have that feeling for quite a bit as he rehabs his way back to full strength first.

As Fletcher mentioned, hopefully this is the last negative surprise the team has to deal with this off-season. They’ve already had plenty of injuries to deal with throughout the year. They do not need any more to pop up.

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