After a day of hope, the decision came down this morning that Braydon Coburn, who took a 50-stitch cut around his left eye in Game 2, will not be able to play tonight in Game 4.
"We were hopeful yesterday," Flyers coach John Stevens said, after this morning's pre-game skate. "He got on the ice a little bit, but still not ready to play. I think he's getting closer, but definitely not playing tonight."
Later, Stevens added, "I mean, we're not going to put anybody back in the lineup if we don't feel they're ready to play, and clearly that's the case right now. He's a young kid that wants to play. He's really kind of distraught right now that he's not able to play. But we're hopeful we'll win this game today, and we have a couple of days before we play again, and hopefully we can get him back."
Ryan Parent again will take Coburn's place on defense. The only other lineup change, as expected, is that Patrick Thoresen will play tonight in place of Steve Downie.
Rich Hofmann has been at the Daily News since 1980. He previously blogged the Eagles' postseason run in 2006. 
Ed Barkowitz was the first Philadelphia Newspaper journalist to write a blog, starting back in 2002.
Comments (8)
Good decision. He is the future of the flyers defense and him playing will not prevent the inevitable sweep. Its been a good season. They went further than anyone thought they would. Alot to build on for next year and we havent mortgaged the future to get here. Holgren will make a few off season improvements and I think we will be back better than this year.
Posted by aftan romanczak | May 15, 2008 12:22 PM
The reason the Flyers are losing this series is because of the handicapped hockey rules. The Flyers' were 1 game away from the cup and Tampa Bay was a 1 year wonder. The Penguins were terrible at that time. I predicted the Penguins would be in the Finals soon because of these river hockey rules. It will only take them 3 years. The Flyers had to totally rebuild. The Flyers used to be a big strong team that played great defense. The league is a disgrace now. All the league cares about is drawing in new fans and they don't care about the fans who have always loved the game. The league scoring average is always going up because of these fake rules.
Posted by Robert Backlund | May 15, 2008 12:55 PM
If the Flyers had had Hatcher (and Rathje, too) back in the TB series a few years ago, we'd have our Cup.
The new rules are awful, and have made the officiating even worse than it was before - the game is too hard to call.
Posted by Dave | May 15, 2008 1:19 PM
It's a shame these 2 teams cannot play each other on a level playing field...Sure the Penguins are better when your top 2 defensemen are out. I'd much rather have the Penguins steamroll us with our entire team healthy then sit here and wonder "what if" we had everyone playing in this series. This sucks!
Posted by GeeBee | May 15, 2008 1:40 PM
If we had Gagne it would be a different series. You can't discount what impact or attention a 40 goal scorer will demand. Brier and Richards can't do it all. Gagne, Timmonen and Coburn would have changed this series dramatically
Posted by KFD | May 15, 2008 2:12 PM
Agreed. I much rather have both teams healthy and leave everything on the ice. This would be kind of a sucky way to end it.
It's not over yet though, and I won't be drawn into an end of the season discussion til it is. We've still got a shot, and I'm not leaving the game early. As a fan I don't want my team to ever give up, so I can't ask less of myself.
Posted by flyler | May 15, 2008 3:18 PM
Wow! The Flyers and their fans will win something this year. The prize for whining the most about officiating. If anybody though Crosby was a whiner, he's got nothing on you guys.
Let's face it, the Flyers used up all of their lucky breaks to beat Montreal. With all their lucky breaks used up, they can't get anything going against the Pens.
Spare me the crap about officiating. If a team is constantly being outplayed, outshot and spends the whole game chasing the other that has the puck, then it's bound to pick more penalties than the other team. It's just simple logic.
Posted by pb | May 15, 2008 3:42 PM
PB, I don't see any whining about the officials on this post. You're making it up. And if you can call the Flyers success against Montreal "lucky breaks," than we can call the Penguins lucky for playing Ottawa and Philadelphia when both teams were missing extremely key players. Lastly, don't pollute our blogs with your smelly hot air.
Posted by Bob | May 15, 2008 3:47 PM