Flyers' Van Riemsdyk Latest to Suffer Concussion: Fan Reaction
The Philadelphia Flyers roster has been slammed by injuries this season. James van Riemsdyk is the latest player to go down. He is out indefinitely with a concussion.
With captain Chris Pronger likely gone for the season, or beyond, fans have to ask themselves how many blows this team can take and still retain competitive playoff hopes.
Realistically
At some point, enough is enough.
The Flyers may be nearing that point now that ‘JVR’ is out indefinitely after he was hit in the head during two recent games against the New York Islanders and Carolina Hurricanes.
Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier and Brayden Schenn have all recently returned from head injuries. Thankfully for them and for the team, the issues weren’t overly serious and appear to have left no lasting effects.
In van Riemsdyk’s case, he hasn’t been having a great season offensively. But, he was an important part of the team’s overall forward line depth.
Realistically, a team can only lose so many players before increasing totals in the regular season loss column are seen. If this injury pattern stretches into the playoffs, it seems difficult to imagine the Flyers making much headway past April.
Transitional period
The National Hockey League is clearly at the beginning of a transitional period in its history.
With an ever-increasing awareness of head injuries, has come an evolving response to this issue. In direct terms, that means that doctors, trainers, players, their agents, coaches, management, League officials and others are learning how to best handle a very complex matter.
It’s obviously going to take awhile for some proven protocols to be more fully developed and for changes to be made regarding speed and safety within the game.
In the meantime, everyone is understandably being overly cautious about the matter. It’s certainly better to error on the side of concern whenever a head injury is seen, or reported.
Bob, Eric and Keith
I recently spoke with Bob Clarke, Eric Lindros and Keith Primeau at the Winter Classic festivities about player safety. Each offered insightful opinions that included a diversity of solutions.
Those conversations underscored my belief that it will take time to fully address this issue and that strong responses will need to incorporate a multitude of ideas. In the meantime, more players are going to be injured.
All hockey fans need to continue to hope that the game is moving closer to the day when this serious safety trend is reversed.
Sean was born in the Philadelphia region and has written professionally for over two decades. Read his Sports Blog: Insight and follow him on Twitter @ SeanyOB
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