*Photo from Sportsnaut*
Lately, the Philadelphia Flyers just haven't gotten any breaks. Flyers right shot defenseman Ryan Ellis is unlikely to play this season due to a lingering back injury, according to Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher on Thursday.
Fletcher said in a press conference that "The rehab, there's been ebbs and flows. I think he made progress earlier in the summer. I would say the last two months there hasn't been any visible signs of progress. It's been a frustrating injury. Nobody's more frustrated than Ryan, nobody wants to play more than Ryan. But we're dealing with reality now and he's not skating, so clearly he is a long way away from playing."
The same injury that is hampering Ellis currently is the one that kept him sidelined for almost all of the 2021-2022 season, his first one in Philadelphia. He was limited to 4 games last season, scoring one goal and contributing 4 assists, enjoying a productive 4 games before missing the remainder of the year.
Prior to the 2021-2022 season, Ellis was acquired by the Flyers as part of a 3 team trade with the Nashville Predators and Vegas Golden Knights. Ellis and Philippe Myers joined the Flyers, with Nolan Patrick going to the Golden Knights, and Cody Glass going to Nashville.
In discussing Ellis, the Flyers have been rather vague about the injury, but Fletcher described it as a multi-faceted injury in his back that has been keeping him out long term. It is very likely that Ellis doesn't play this season, and Fletcher didn't rule out the possibility of it being a career ending injury.
Fletcher said that "I know we've been probably vague with describing the injury, I think we've called it multifaceted, which it is. There's a psoas component of this, there's a hip component, there's an adductor component, so I'm not sure that if you go in and repair one part it's going to fix everything we're trying to work with. Trying to get everything back, rehab everything back. I've never heard of an injury like this. It's very complicated. A torn psoas is a very significant injury for a hockey player, a very rare injury, so we're doing the best we can and we'll just leave it up to the medical experts."
Ellis has spent 11 seasons in the NHL, 10 of which were with the Predators. Over his career, Ellis has 76 goals and 199 assists, recording a sterling +116 plus/minus rating while averaging 20:52 of ice time per game in 566 regular season games. Ellis has 7 goals and 31 assists in 74 career playoff games.
Entering the 2022-2023 season, Ellis will be on the 4th year of an 8 year, $50 million extension signed with the Predators prior to the 2019-2020 season. Ellis has an AAV of $6.25 million for all 8 years, with no incentives included. His contract expires at the end of the 2026-2027 season, and could be placed on LTIR this season by the Flyers.
In addition to Ellis, Sean Couturier is considered week to week with an upper body injury at the start of training camp. This offseason, the Flyers brought aboard Justin Braun, Tony DeAngelo, and Nicolas Deslauriers.
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