Ryan Parent out 12 to 14 weeks

Rookie

Ryan Parent

, who played well in last season's playoffs and was expected to be one of the Flyers' key defensemen this year, has torn cartilage in his right shoulder and will miss 12 to 14 weeks, general manager

Paul Holmgren

said last night.

"He tried to go the conservative route and rest it, and that didn't work," Holmgren said.

No date has been set for the surgery, Parent said.

The injury, Parent said, occurred on "an innocent hit" in a Sept. 25 preseason game against the New York Islanders in London, Ontario. "I finished the game," he said.

The injury leaves the Flyers with seven healthy defensemen: Kimmo Timonen, Braydon Coburn, Randy Jones, Steve Eminger, Ossi Vaananen, Lasse Kukkonen and Luca Sbisa.

Holmgren said the injury doesn't mean that the 18-year-old Sbisa automatically will start the season with the Flyers. The GM said the club will decide today whether to keep Sbisa on the roster or send him to juniors for seasoning.

The Flyers can keep Sbisa for as many as nine games and then send him to juniors. If he is on the Flyers' roster for 10 or more games, he must be on it for the entire season.

"I just want to do what's right for the kid and right for the team," said Holmgren, adding that he wasn't going to try to sign defenseman Bryan Berard, who was released from the Flyers' camp last week, because he didn't want to fill the organization's 50-man roster to the maximum. (There are 49 players on it.)

Added Holmgren: "I'm just very disappointed for Ryan; he had made strides . . . and you're talking about a significant amount of time" that he will miss.

Parent, 21, said doctors told him his recovery would take 10 or 11 weeks - that's a few weeks less than Holmgren's estimate. He said he hoped to be back in the lineup before Christmas.

As for Sbisa, Parent gave a glowing report.

"He's proven himself well in camp," he said. "He's played with a lot of confidence, and this gives him a great opportunity."

"For a defenseman, he's got no fear out there," Coburn said. "He's got a great skill-set and he's not afraid to make mistakes or make plays, and that's one of the most important things."

"He fits right in," coach John Stevens said. "He has a lot of quiet confidence and is very respectful. It takes you two or three years sometimes to try to get players to be good pros, and he seems like he has the demeanor of a good pro already."

Third-period goals by

Patrick Maroon, Jonathan Matsumoto

and

Andreas Nodl

(empty net) helped the AHL Phantoms defeat the Flyers in an exhibition at the Spectrum.

Antero Niittymaki, recovering from hip surgery, made 28 saves for the Phantoms. It appears that Niittymaki will start the season as Marty Biron's backup with the Flyers.

"Give [the Phantoms] credit; they played extremely well and the kids played hard," Stevens said. "The game of hockey is not so much the talent level that separates the NHL from other leagues. . . . More than anything else it's the competitiveness, and obviously there was some natural motivation for this team to play and they played extremely hard."

Simon Gagne and Scottie Upshall scored for the Flyers.

The Flyers plan a pep rally in the courtyard of the Comcast Center, 1701 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, today at noon.

- Sam Carchidi