PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Flyers, through no choice of their own, are about to get a little younger on defence.
Braydon Coburn, 23, will not be able to play tonight because a deflected shot hit his left eye and left him with more than 50 stitches closing a circular cut so swollen he still could not see properly yesterday.
His place will be taken by Ryan Parent, two years his junior, and the job of defending against Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Marian Hossa and the rest of the Pittsburgh Penguins is now a lot harder. Despite his tender years, Coburn was a big part of the Flyers' defence, especially since the team's best blueliner, Kimmo Timonen, was lost before the series to a blood clot in his ankle.
Now Parent, whose youth limited him to 22 NHL regular-season game with the Flyers, with the rest spent in the AHL, will have to play a regular shift in the third game of the best-of-seven NHL Eastern Conference final. His only other playoff game came in the first round against the Washington Capitals.
Subtracting Timonen and Coburn and adding Parent and 37-year-old journeyman Jaroslav Modry is not an equation that will thrill many hockey coaches.
The encouraging sign is that the defence, even if it was down to five players after Coburn was lost in the second minute of the game on Sunday, did a better job coping with the Penguins' speedsters than it did in the first game of the series.
Malkin did not score a point, although Crosby had a goal and an assist in the 4-2 Pittsburgh win. But the Flyers still lost and are now down 2-0 in the series, with no one giving them a chance to do much except win one game at home to prolong their playoff exit to five games.
Flyers head coach John Stevens thinks the key to getting back in the series rests with his forwards rather than his defencemen. In the first two games of the series, they turned the puck over too much and were not able to fore-check consistently.
“I thought our five defenceman did a better job after we lost [Coburn],” he said. “We need more composure and urgency with our group of forwards. We have to do more with the puck.”
Parent, who came to the Flyers as part of the trade with the Nashville Predators for Peter Forsberg on Feb. 15, 2007, is no stranger to big games at different levels. The native of Prince Albert, Sask., was a first-round draft pick of the Predators and won gold medals in 2006 and 2007 with Canada at the world junior championship.
When the media came calling yesterday, Parent did not seem too nervous about his coming assignment.
“It's part of my personality,” he said. “You can't get too excited. The main thing is to work hard in practice.
“Obviously, you don't have games to prepare yourself but going out there with the Black Aces [reserve players] every day, we try to play little games out there and stay competitive. It's not the same as real games, but what is?”
There was complaining in both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia about the officiating thus far in the series.
The Penguins think the referees are too quick to whistle down their chief agitator, Jarkko Ruutu, simply because of his reputation. The Flyers are not happy about a hooking call on defenceman Derian Hatcher that resulted in a power-play goal for the Penguins on Sunday, and there was no call on an elbow thrown by Malkin on Flyers centre Daniel Brière that left him woozy.
“I was in la-la land for a few seconds,” Brière said. “It was an elbow to the back of the head. I didn't have a chance to discuss anything. I'd rather not comment on the referees.”
Brière and linemates Vaclav Prospal and Scott Hartnell have not produced a point in this series, one reason why Stevens has been consistent in his criticism of the Flyers forwards.
There is a chance Coburn can play in the fourth game on Thursday. He was examined by Dr. Steven Goldman at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital yesterday and no lasting damage was found.
In was ruled that Coburn did not suffer a concussion, but his flight back to Philadelphia on Sunday was uncomfortable.
“The only issue now is the swelling around his eye,” Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren said. “That is the concern we have right now. Everything in and around his eye is fine.
“He had some issues on the plane. He was a little light-headed and I think he threw up a couple of times, but we think that is from all the blood he lost. He lost a lot.”
