Ryan Johansen has yet to play a game in the Philadelphia Flyers organization, and, apparently, he is not going to be joining the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the AHL just yet, either.
While the severity of the Johansen injury is unknown, we have learned in the last few days that it is a hip injury for him. Johansen last played for the Colorado Avalanche just two days before coming to the Flyers in the Sean Walker trade. So, unless he got injured on the plane, Johansen has been dealing with this injury and is now deciding that he cannot play through it.
Because of his injury, the Flyers are unable to actually assign Johansen to Lehigh Valley until he is cleared to play by team doctors. By extension, if Johansen remains injured in the summer, the Flyers cannot buy him out either, as my colleague Clay Brewer has pointed out.
At the moment, with Johansen on the Flyers’ roster, the team is carrying an unusually high 15 forwards, leaving them without a spare defenseman. Nick Seeler is eligible to return from injured reserve when healthy, which could make Bobby Brink a candidate to be sent down to the AHL in the interim. That is, unless the Flyers first place Johansen on injured reserve to create an additional roster spot.
There have been some reports that Johansen has been willing to mend his relationship with his former head coach John Tortorella, and the Flyers were willing to make that conversation happen. So far, Johansen’s injury has put all of that on hold. A solution does not appear to be in the immediate future here, but who really knows.
For what it’s worth, according to the NHL Media site, Johansen will wear No. 12 for the Flyers if he ever plays in a game for them.
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