Flyers' Joel Farabee out up to four weeks with upper-body injury

The Philadelphia Flyers’ nightmare season continues, this time with an injury to Joel Farabee. The young forward is on injured reserve and is expected to miss up to four weeks with an upper-body injury. Kevin Hayes has also been placed on injured reserve following his adductor procedure earlier this week. As replacements, the Flyers recalled Wade Allison and Jackson Cates to the taxi squad.

Interim head coach Mike Yeo told reporters including Giana Han of the Philadelphia Inquirer that something happened to Farabee Thursday night but didn’t get into the specifics of whether or not it is related to his previous injury. At any rate, he’ll be out for the next few weeks as the Flyers continue to spiral down the standings. The team has now lost 10 straight and barely sits ahead of the New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders, which have played fewer games.

Farabee, 21, is one of the few bright spots in Philadelphia, even though his overall production still hasn’t been outstanding this season. The 2018 first-round pick has 11 goals and 18 points in 33 games, enough to put him fourth on the team in scoring so far. While there are many players on the roster who might not be with the team after this dreadful season, it seems unlikely that Farabee would lose his spot as a building block. The young forward signed a six-year, $30M extension in September that will keep him under contract at a reasonable $5M cap hit through the 2027-28 season.

In terms of replacements, Cates has played just seven games at the NHL level this season and 11 since signing out of the University of Minnesota-Duluth as an undrafted free agent last spring. Allison, a second-round pick from 2016, scored seven points in 14 games last season for the Flyers but has missed a huge chunk of this year with an ankle sprain. In seven games with Lehigh Valley, Allison had four points.