Flyers’ Bobby Brink, Jamie Drysdale ‘still getting evaluated’ after injuries
Both players left Tuesday's game and did not return after they were on the receiving end of blindside hits from Ducks players.
Tuesday’s Flyers-Ducks game was always going to have extra emotion and intensity given the connections and bad blood between the teams after Cutter Gauthier demanded a trade from Philadelphia two years ago.
That bad blood quickly ratcheted up another level when two Flyers were injured by blindsided hits. Bobby Brink and Jamie Drysdale each left the game and did not return.
“Still getting evaluated, type of thing,” coach Rick Tocchet said on Wednesday. “I don’t want to say it’s a day-to-day. I don’t know yet. So it’s kind of one of those things. … I really don’t know. I talked to them today; they’re in a half-decent mood. Still being evaluated, so we’ll see.”
» READ MORE: Reevaluating the Flyers-Ducks trades involving Cutter Gauthier, Trevor Zegras, and Jamie Drysdale
Brink was blindsided by a Jansen Harkins hit just 2 minutes, 38 seconds into the first period.
Off the rush, the Flyers winger received a pass from Nikita Grebenkin and was skating toward the slot when Harkins cut across the slot and clipped Brink up high. The Flyers winger did not return to the bench in the first period and was later ruled out with an upper-body injury.
Noah Cates went right after Harkins, and the two dropped their gloves. Both players received five-minute majors for fighting, and Cates was handed an extra two minutes for instigating. Harkins was not assessed a penalty for the initial hit.
According to Hockeyfights.com, it is Cates’ first pro hockey fight. The site says he logged one fight when he was with Omaha of the United States Hockey League in 2018, dropping the gloves with Paul Cotter, who now plays for the New Jersey Devils.
Injury struck for the Flyers again in the second period, as Drysdale went down after a cheap hit well away from the puck by Ducks forward Ross Johnston.
Johnston was skating into the zone and ran over an unsuspecting Drysdale, who was curling up top near the blue line. The puck was deep in the Ducks’ zone at the time. Johnston appeared to be pleading that the hit was incidental and just a collision between two players who didn’t see one another. On replay, it appeared that Johnson had enough to see and avoid Drysdale and that he even stuck out an arm and threw it into Drysdale. The two seemed to bang knee-to-knee, with Drysdale also absorbing a blow up high.
Johnston was handed a five-minute major for interference and a game misconduct. The play by Johnston came after Garnet Hathaway drilled Olen Zellweger — cleanly — in the offensive zone. The Flyers failed to score on the five-minute power play.
Drysdale, who was acquired in the deal for Gauthier almost two years ago to the day, laid on the ice and did not move for a considerable amount of time. The stretcher did come out, and the doctors came out of the stands, but Drysdale sat up and skated off the ice with help.
He did not return and was officially ruled out at the start of the third period with an undisclosed injury.
There was no supplemental discipline handed out by the NHL on any of the hits.