Flyers Defenseman Timonen Out For Series: Impact/Analysis

As if the Flyers weren't going to have their hands full defensively as it is. Now, they'll have to do without their top defenseman for the entire series.

Kimmo Timonen was diagnosed yesterday with a blod clot in his foot -- a devastating blow before the series even began to a Flyer team that counts on Timonen for just about everything.

One could credibly argue that Timonen is the most indispensable player on the Flyer team. He played 25 minutes a game. Relying on his skill, skating and hockey sense, he keyed the Flyer power-play and penalty killing units. He was their top defensive defenseman. Losing him is a great loss for the Philadelphia defense.

Timonen and (now former) partner Brandon Coburn were expected to be the Flyers shutdown pairing. They did a pretty good job defending Alexander Ovechkin in their series against the Capitals (although Ovechkin had 9 points which, if you ask me, is pretty credible for 7 games in the playoffs) and defending Alexi Kovalev in their series against Montreal. The Flyers defense was going to have their hands full even with him in the lineup because they don't have great depth on defense and the Penguins can roll out two lines almost unrivaled in the game. Now what do they do?

They certainly don't have a two-time Stanley Cup winner to put into their lineup like the Penguins have in Darryl Sydor if something were to happen to one of their defenseman. The Flyers are either going to insert defensively-weak Jaroslav Modry or talented-but-unproven rookie Ryan Parent into the lineup. Their defense pairings are also likely to change all around.

For the Flyers to have any chance, Brandon Coburn is going to have to quickly transform himself into a number one defenseman. Even then, the Flyers are going to give up more scoring chances, and be more vulnerable on the penalty kill. Martin Biron is going to have to be superhuman. On top of all that, other Flyer defenseman are going to have to try and compensate for Timonen's loss. I don't expect players like Jason Smith and Randy Jones to excel at playing beyond their means. The Penguins don't ask Brooks Orpik to score. There's a reason why.

The Penguins chance of winning this series -- at the expense of the Flyers' bad luck -- just went up. I don't expect them to take anything for granted, but there's no getting around the fact that Philadelphia is now, without question, significantly weaker on defense. That can only make it harder for the Flyers to win the series.

Bring on the white-out tonight. I can already hear the chanting now ....

GO HOME FLYERS ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !