Flyers’ Travis Konecny scratched for Canada at 4 Nations

Philadelphia Flyers winger Travis Konecny will NOT be in the lineup for the highly anticipated Canada vs. USA game at the 4 Nations on Saturday night.

The most anticipated hockey game of the decade is about to take place on Saturday night, but now we will be only seeing one Philadelphia Flyer instead of the two we expected.

It will be a best-on-best matchup between the two giants of ice hockey: Canada vs. the United States at the Bell Centre in Montreal. A rivalry that has been so woven into the very fabric of the modern game. Something magic happens when these two countries face off and we have been without the superstars of the sport participating for so long now. We are buzzing with hype for the puck to be dropped, but without one familiar face.

At Friday’s practice for Team Canada, Sam Bennett was injected into the lineup from being a healthy scratch on Wednesday, to provide his standard ultra physicality and general grit for Saturday night. Unfortunately, that meant that Flyers winger Travis Konecny was the one to be pulled and will be a healthy scratch for the Big Game.

Canada head coach has opted for a familiar trio of players for his fourth line instead of what he had Wednesday against Sweden. The Lightning Line of Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, and Brandon Hagel will serve as the last line with Sam Bennett centering Brad Marchand and Seth Jarvis.

Fortunately, there will still be one Philadelphia representative on the ice. With Shea Theodore suffering an injury Wednesday and out for the tournament, Cooper has more or less been forced to insert defenseman Travis Sanheim on the blue line. We don’t expect him to have a whole whack of minutes, but as it stands, the 28-year-old from Elkhorn, Manitoba will be next to Drew Doughty on Canada’s bottom pairing.

Does this mean Canada is scared? No one can reasonably tell you that Sam Bennett provides more scoring ability than Konecny, but him being a center and knowing how to deal with Panthers teammate Matthew Tkachuk on the other side, could be a realistic possibility. Still, we hate to see Konecny on the sidelines and especially when it could be a very physical and hotly contested game such as Canada vs. USA. Konecny will be missed in the post-whistle scrums around the net.

There can only be one Flyer named Travis representing Canada at a time, we guess.