Michael Raffl leaves the game after awkward hit along the boards.

Bad news on a good night for the Flyers.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
Michael Raffl leaves the game after awkward hit along the boards.

It was a good night for the Philadelphia Flyers but it may have also been a costly one for the boys from the city of Brotherly Love.

The Flyers faced the Boston Bruins on Sunday for what was effectively Game 1 of the Eastern Conference round robin and the Flyers dominated for the vast majority of the contest. There was no scoring for roughly the first half of the game but it was at that moment that Flyers veteran forward Michael Raffl played hero and gave the Flyers the first goal of the game, a lead they would never relinquish for the remainder of the game eventually defeating the Bruins by a score of 4 - 1. 

It was a big goal from a roleplayer on the Flyers roster that stepped up big time, but the heroics for Michael Raffle would unfortunately be short lived. During the game's final period Raffl was involved in an incident along the boards that appears to have left him with a relatively significant injury. Raffl, who was in a race to the puck against Boston Bruins defenseman Jeremy Lauzon, fell awkwardly after some relatively minor contact from Lauzon and his leg appeared to take the brunt of the impact along the boards. This would result in Raffl remaining down on the ice for several long moments, but thankfully after the Flyers regained position for some time the officials noticed Raffl was down and called a stop to the play.

The good news is that Raffl did not appear to be in too much pain while down on the ice, but the bad news is that he appeared to be entirely unable to get back to his feet under his own power. Raffle tried valiantly to get up but appeared unable to put weight on one of his legs, and eventually he had to be helped up and off the ice by both the Flyers training staff as well as his teammates. The hope is that, based in part of Raffl's reaction to the injury, this will prove to be a relatively minor ailment, otherwise the Flyers may have a tough time replacing a player that was a vital part of this game against a tough Bruins team.

Source: