Travis Konecny day to day with upper-body injury
It is not great news to hear right before the Flyers face one of the best teams in the league. They will be without their best player as Travis Konecny is out with a minor upper-body injury. He is expected to miss the game against the Penguins as well. This will be the first time he has missed a game all season.
Konecny left practice early on Friday. He began showing discomfort after Marc Staal made contact with him during a drill. He remained on the ice for about 5-10 minutes before going off. He did not return when the Flyers switched ice for the second half of practice.
John Tortorella did not have an immediate update after practice. While the Flyers say the injury is minor, it is still not a good sign that he won't play in either game this weekend. Being without their leading scorer for any length of time is not good. Not having him against the Rangers is even worse.
Konecny is on pace for his second consecutive 30-goal season. He posted 31 goals last year and currently sits at 27. He should easily earn himself a new high. A strong finish could see him break the 60-point mark for the third time in his career. Konecny came into Saturday on a seven-game point streak, in which he had 12 points. He had goals in five of those games and put up multi-point outings in four.
It is unknown if the Flyers will make any moves before traveling to Pittsburgh tomorrow. They recently sent down Olle Lycksell, who last played on Feb. 12. He has averaged 9:58 time on ice in five games this season. The team wants him to get more minutes. However, with Konecny out, there are plenty of minutes to be had.
It certainly isn't good timing to have sent Lycksell down. If the Flyers knew there was a chance that Konecny would not be available, keeping him around would have been ideal. It's tough to say without knowing exactly when he was ruled out. But not giving yourself an extra forward for moments like this is a head-scratcher nonetheless.
For the Flyers sake, they will hope that Konecny's injury is indeed minor and that he'll be back when the team takes on the Lightning on Tuesday.