Flyers forward Denver Barkey to start the season on injured reserve; Dan Vladař ready to go
Barkey, 21, was having a strong preseason before suffering a lower-body injury on Sept. 21.
The Flyers released their opening night roster a little before Monday’s 5 p.m. deadline, and the injury news was mixed.
The good news? Starting goaltender and last year’s team MVP Dan Vladař is good to go after suffering an upper-body injury on Sept. 22.
The bad? The Flyers will be without young forward Denver Barkey to start the season. Barkey, who is considered day-to-day with a lower-body injury, will go on injured reserve and is required to miss at least seven days.
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Barkey, who had five goals and 17 points in 43 games last season as a rookie, first sustained the injury in the Flyers’ preseason opener against Washington on Sept. 21. The 21-year-old left the game 15 seconds into the second period after taking a big hit from Capitals defenseman Martin Fehérváry earlier in the game. Barkey tried to give it a go twice more but pulled up on both occasions after trying to generate speed. Since suffering the injury, Barkey has skated twice, once by himself and once with a group — he left the latter session early.
While Barkey won’t start the season for the Flyers, he seems to be progressing.
“They’re both kind of day to day,” Rick Tocchet said Sunday when asked about Barkey and fellow forward Nikita Grebenkin. “Barks is getting a little bit better every day, and Grebby, a little banged up after last game, is working on a couple of little things.”
Grebenkin was named to the team’s initial roster on Monday with no injury designation. Tocchet confirmed that the injury is not related to the upper-body injury that cost him the second half of last season.
While the Flyers have not yet confirmed that Vladař will start opening night on Wednesday against the Pittsburgh Penguins (7:30 p.m., TNT/HBO Max/TruTV), all signs point to that being the case.
“It looks very promising. [Vladař] should be ready for Game 1,” said general manager Danny Brière during Saturday’s preseason finale. “Probably could have played if we had played a regular-season [game] tonight, but we just want to play it safe and let him get as close to 100% for the start of the regular season.”
Vladař’s injury occurred in the Flyers’ second preseason game when he left 13 minutes, 31 seconds into the first period after allowing a deflection goal against Boston.
In the lead-up to the goal, Vladař mishandled a dump-in and was spread down with his arms extended on the ice when Tanner Jeannot crashed the net for the rebound. While it didn’t look like there was significant contact between Jeannot’s leg and Vladař on the play, the netminder let go of his stick immediately and appeared to be holding his right arm awkwardly in the sequence that led to Michael Eyssimont’s goal.
In other injury news, the Flyers listed Helge Grans as “Injured nonroster” in Monday’s release. The 24-year-old defenseman left Thursday’s game with a lower-body injury and did not return. He was expected to be sent down to the American Hockey League but is not eligible to do so while injured.
