Flyers: Coach Laviolette Talks Life Without Pronger
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The Philadelphia Flyers have the day off before visiting Montreal tomorrow night.
The Orange and Black took care of Toronto last night at the Wells Fargo Center, 4-2 (see related story). But the win came at a price, as defenseman and captain Chris Pronger took a stick to the right eye and is expected to miss at least two to three weeks. Pronger will spend the next few days on bed rest.
This morning, Flyers' coach Peter Laviolette called in to KYW Newsradio and talked about seeing his captain go down.
"I think everybody gets a pit in their stomach when something happens in the face area and you think it's around the eyes. I think everybody just goes silent for a little bit, you get that nauseous feeling, you hope and pray that everything is good and OK, and hopefully that's the case with Chris," Laviolette said.
As for life on the ice without Pronger, Laviolette talked about how his absence will affect the pairings on defense:
"I think it will be a game-by-game and a shift-by-shift thing. We still have good depth back there, and I think depending on what we are looking for for matchups, like we do for every game, I think we'll move our guys around. But certainly I like our defense -- and I like it better with Chris in there, but I still like it. We've got some real solid players back there. Like I said, you wish he was in there but he is not. (Flyers' GM) Paul Holmgren did a good job of putting a defense together that had good depth, and right now we'll be trying to use that depth to get by with Chris' injury."
Hear Matt Leon's full interview with Peter Laviolette in this CBS Philly SportsPod…
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The Flyers now sit at 5-2-1 on the season as they ready for tomorrow's matchup with the Canadiens, and they have had this success despite meshing a lot of new faces. Laviolette says building the team off the ice and building the team and the identity on the ice have been, and continue to be, top priorities.
"The players have done a good job at camp at grasping what it is that we are trying to do. They've gone on the ice, they have executed, they've played with a lot of energy, we've won a lot of games. While it is still a work in progress, we're still getting some of the results that we were hoping for."
Faceoff tomorrow night in Montreal is set for 7:30pm.
Reported by Matt Leon, KYW Newsradio 1060
