Flyers GM Hextall Having to Manage Injuries Early

(Kate Frese/SB Nation)

By Jeff Quake, Sports Talk Philly staff writer 

Hockey can be like a chess match or balancing act for a general manager when having to decide when to put a player on injured reserve or long term injured reserve. They also have cap issues to deal with every season as well as General managers are forced into making tough decisions all the time.

From trading players, to signing free agents, to buying out players, to dealing with injuries. For Philadelphia Flyers’ GM Ron Hextall, it has already been a busy season early.

In Saturday afternoon’s 2-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers, Andrew MacDonald blocked a Mark Letestu shot on an Oilers power play that left him hobbled. MacDonald, who blocked six shots in the win, will be out four-to-six weeks as a result.

MacDonald did a tremendous job on the penalty kill, and deserves a ton of credit for gutting it out for the rest of the shift until the puck was cleared out of the zone.

Both rookie Taylor Leier and Jordan Weal are also listed as day-to-day with upper body injuries. Lehigh Valley Phantoms captain Colin McDonald and Anthony Stolarz are out indefinitely with lower-body injuries.

Now how does this play into factor for Philadelphia? Listed below is information from the section 16.11 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement about what the options are for GMs.

The Injured Reserve List is a category of the Reserve List. A Club may place a Player on the Injured Reserve List only if such Player is reasonably expected to be injured, ill or disabled and unable to perform his duties as a hockey Player for a minimum of seven (7) days from the onset of such injury, illness or disability.

(b) A Player on whose behalf a Club has exercised the Bona Fide Long Term Injury/Illness Exception shall be placed on Injured Reserve for the period of such Exception, including any period the Player is on a Bona Fide Long Term Injury/Illness Exception Conditioning Loan.

(c) Players on the Injured Reserve List may attend team meetings, travel with the Club (at the Club's option) and participate in practice sessions with other Players on the Club's Active Roster. Players on Injured Reserve are prohibited from appearing in NHL Games, participating in pre-game warm-ups with their Clubs, or dressing in game uniforms on NHL Game days. Players on Injured Reserve and Injured Non-Roster shall have access to the Club's primary training and medical facilities during regular business hours provided, however, that the Club may restrict such Players' access during periods when Players on the Club's Active Roster are expected to be present at such primary training and medical facilities (e.g., pre-game skates, practices, games, medical and physical treatments for other Players) and within a reasonable period of time before and after such time periods.

(d) Once a Player is placed on the Injured Reserve List, the Club may replace said Player on its NHL Active Roster with another Player, and during such period of his designation as an Injured Reserve Player he will not count against the Club's Active Roster limit, provided, however, that the Injured Reserve Player's Player Salary and Bonuses and his replacement's Player Salary and Bonuses are each included in calculating a Club's Actual Club Salary and Averaged Club Salary, and the Players' Share, for purposes of Article 50.

According to nhlguides.net, there are a few areas to look into when a GM has to do what is best for his team.

Chemistry is broken up into three areas – Position, Familiarity, and Line Mix.

Position – A player playing in his proper position will get the best chemistry.

Familiarity – Playing with teammates from the same league or the same team helps the teams chemistry.

Line Mix – How well players will play with each other depending on their player type. For Example, 3 Enforcers as a forward group would have poor chemistry. A Sniper-Playmaker-Power Forward would have great chemistry. There are many combinations so play with your lineup to find good ones.

For the Flyers, they could replace MacDonald with either Brandon Manning, keep Travis Sanheim in the lineup as a regular or recall Sam Morin from the minors. Hextall has plenty of options to think about as they are still waiting for Leier, and Weal to return as well to the lineup.

Will Morin get recalled? Or will Manning and Sanheim both stay in the lineup until MacDonald returns?

But of course this could all change again for Hextall if, and when, there is another injury that he will have to manage.