VOORHEES, N.J. — Flyers center Boyd Gordon will miss at least a week with an upper-body injury, general manager Ron Hextall announced Tuesday. According to sources, Gordon is suffering from back spasms.
Coincidentally, Michael Raffl could return Wednesday against Detroit from an abdominal pull, but likely won’t.
Raffl has been taking full practice lately and said he feels well enough to play. The Flyers could place Gordon on IR and activate Raffl, which doesn’t affect the roster in terms of numbers.
“He’s real close,” Hextall said, adding it was “possible but not probable” Raffl will play Wednesday.
However, some player still has to leave the roster to create cap space to activate defenseman Michael Del Zotto on Saturday in Montreal off LTIR.
Hextall is “hoping” Del Zotto plays on Saturday. He said he has a few ideas to get the team cap and roster compliant by then.
As well as Roman Lyubimov has played, he could be a player sent back to the Phantoms. Or if the Flyers activate Scott Laughton off LTIR, it could be him, as well.
That said, the Flyers really don’t want to carry eight defensemen.
As much as sending Andrew MacDonald through waivers to the Phantoms would save big in cap space and roster, the Flyers likely want to keep MacDonald playing to get him 41 games this season, making him eligible to be exposed for the expansion draft next summer for Las Vegas.
And it goes without saying that the improvement in Brandon Manning’s game, as well as his offensive production, is such that the Flyers will do everything they can to protect him.
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