After two straight losses, the Flyers announced today that both goaltender Sam Ersson and defenseman Jamie Drysdale have been removed from their Injured Reserve list. Both players will return to the lineup tonight when the Flyers face Utah for the first time.
As reported on Friday, Ersson was on the injured reserve list with a lower body injury. Ersson felt a tweak in the Nov. 2 game against Boston and left roughly eight minutes into the game. He returned a week later and played games against Florida and San Jose, both games ending up in a shootout as they split the pair. The Flyers are 6-3-2 in the games since the Nov. 11 contest against the Sharks. Ersson is 5-2-0 and two overtime losses. He also has a .902 save percentage and a goals-against average of 2.70.
Although most anticipated Ersson would be back at some point soon, Drysdale’s return is welcome news for both the defenseman and the team. It might muddy the blueline waters for a bit as Drysdale finds his way back into the lineup, but should be coming in for Egor Zamula and be paired with Nick Seeler, his partner for a good part of last season. The pairing would also make the most sense as the Travis Sanheim/Cam York pairing and the Emil Andrae/Rasmus Ristolainen are playing rather decently of late. It’s highly unlikely Andrae will be sent back down to Lehigh Valley given how well he’s fared in his stint this season.
Drysdale, who was also on injured reserve, played his last game in a 4-3 shootout loss to Florida on Nov. 9. He has a goal and two assists in 15 games so far. All three of them have come on the power play. He was averaging over 23 minutes of ice time in November, up from over 19 in October, as the other defensemen had to make up for the loss of Cam York. In the previous two seasons Drysdale played 42 games, so with any good fortune he’s able to play the rest of the season without too many bumps or bruises.
As for Zamula, barring injury or a drop in play from one of the other six blueliners, he’ll remain a seventh defenseman ahead of Erik Johnson in the depth chart. Zamula had one goal and five assists in 19 games for Philadelphia so far this year.
The only other bit of news is that Aleksei Kolosov will be the backup goaltender tonight for Ersson, putting Fedotov as the odd man out.
