Philadelphia Flyers’ Ryan Ellis won’t be ready to start the season

Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ryan Ellis still seems to be struggling with his pelvic injury, as he will not be ready for training camp or the start of the regular season.

Ellis missed a majority of the 2021-22 season with the same pelvic injury. He initially suffered the injury just three games into the season, and missed almost a month while recovering from it. However, he returned too soon, and re-aggravated the injury in his return to the lineup, and missed the rest of the season as a result.

While he only got into four games in 2021-22, he still managed to produce in his minimal time with his new team, with one goal, four assists, and five points. He has also got a point in every game he’s played so far as a Flyer. However, it’s still not what the Flyers were hoping for, as he was the team’s big acquisition in the 2021 offseason, dealing Nolan Patrick and Philippe Myers to the Nashville Predators for him as part of a three team trade with the Vegas Golden Knights, who got Patrick from the Predators for Cody Glass.

Losing Ellis is also a huge blow for the Flyers on the defensive side, as he is arguably the team’s best in that regard, consistently balancing his offensive game with a strong defense, maintaining a solid 52.77% shot attempt share and a 53.26% expected goal share at even strength in his last three seasons.

Where this news really hurts for the Flyers is that it comes just a day after it was announced that Sean Couturier was expected to miss the next 6-8 weeks with a back injury, with the potential for surgery if it wasn’t resolved in that timeframe. That means they are now down arguably their best forward and defenseman to start the season after losing both for a majority of last season, making for a rough start to what was supposed to be a rebound from their 2021-22 finish of last place in the division with a 25-46-11 record.