Pronger Done for the Year

The news has gone from very bad to even worse for the Philadelphia Flyers. The announcement came down on Thursday night that their captain and veteran defenseman Chris Pronger will not be able to play for the rest of the season (including the playoffs), as his post-concussion symptoms are far worse than initially expected and now there are genuine fears for the 37-year old's career or however many years were thought to be remaining in it.

This concludes his season at 12 points in 13 games played for the Flyers and everyone will now hope for the best (except for his critics, I suppose), that he may extend his career a little bit further.

Pronger signed a 7-year contract extension in 2009, which was signed as a 35-year old, which means that if he was to retire, the Flyers would still be on the hook for his cap hit, which stands at a shade over $4.9 million per season.  If Pronger doesn't file his retirement paperwork, it gives him the ability to comeback, if at all possible and it will give the Flyers the ability to place him on Long Term Injured Reserve for cap hit relief.  The latter likely being a very viable option, for however long Pronger is out of action.

We already knew that the loss of Pronger was going to be significant to Scott G. in the pool, but he'll now have to sit with an injured rearguard for another seven weeks, just before the second waiver draft occurs.  By that time, there may not be much left on the market for available defensemen, but he'll have to be dropped for any sort of help.

When Pronger was first said to be out a month, almost a month ago, Scott was in 9th place in the standings and along with a couple of other injury problems, he has now dropped down to 12th spot, 12 points behind 9th place.  This doesn't look very good for Scott at this point in the year.