The Flyers announced today that Michael Leighton will undergo surgery on his back Monday, October 11th and miss 6 to 8 weeks.
This is just another in a long line of questionable disclosures made by the Flyers front office, who consistently claim an injury is nothing, only to have that player require surgery and miss multiple months.
The worst part? Leighton was quoted as saying, “I kind of dealt with it a little bit in playoffs last year.” Naturally, questions arise about how much the Flyers new about Leighton’s injury when they decided to re-sign him, but GM Paul Holmgren is once again strangely cryptic. “We didn’t really know that much about it until he had an issue in the summertime, and we’re still not certain it was related to this.”
Taking that literally, they knew he was injured, but not how severely. They opted to sign him to a two-year extension without knowing much about his nagging injury. And oh, they’re still not certain if what ailed him in the playoffs will even be fixed by the surgery (it may not be related!). So no, Mr. Holmgren, this isn’t “what it is.” It’s a lot more than that.
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