Early word today was that Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger "sat out Monday's morning skate with a head cold but is expected to play tonight." Turns out the early word was ill-spoken.
Pronger's out for Game 2 against the Boston Bruins, the official word being "head cold," which we're shocked isn't "upper body illness" in NHL injury parlance. Sarah Baiker of CSN Philly "can't imagine that's the reason," while Sam Carchidi of Broad Street Bull cites a team source as indicating it's "an undisclosed injury."
From CSN Philly:
The Flyers have not disclosed the reason for Pronger's absence, but sources indicate it maybe be two injuries. Pronger injured his back either at the end of the Buffalo series or the start of this series.
Pronger was a minus-3 in Game 1, leaving the bench with around two minutes left in the game according to Philly Sports Daily, which writes:
If the Flyers top defenseman isn't ready to go, the Flyers will be well prepared, playing 32 regular season and five playoff games without him.
"We feel pretty good," Sean O'Donnell said. "Every team deals with injuries. Their team has played without arguably their most offensive guy, Marc Savard, all year and they've done a good job with that and no one's feeling sorry for them over there. They're finding ways to get it done."
"It's not gonna be one guy that's gonna step up and say 'I'm gonna be replacing Chris Pronger.' That's not how it works," Matt Carle said. "Hockey's a team sport as a defense corps, we need to step our game up and replace what is or isn't there."
Pronger played the last three games of the postseason after missing the first five. The Flyers were 2-1 with Pronger, and 2-3 without him. Brian Boucher gets the start.