Flyers defenseman Cameron York will likely make his return to the lineup on Saturday against the Blackhawks, indicating he’ll be activated from injured reserve, Kevin Kurz of The Athletic reports.
York, 23, has been on IR with an upper-body injury for nearly a month. He’s been a full participant in practice for more than a few days now, though, and is well past the initial two-week timeline for his return that was assessed on Oct. 26.
The Flyers were evidently cautious with rushing the young defender back, but “all signs point to” him playing this weekend after sitting out the last 13 games, Kurz said. The lefty, who the Flyers selected 14th overall in the 2019 draft, had skated at least 20 minutes in each of his first seven appearances of the season and had scored twice with one assist and a -2 rating.
Philadelphia head coach John Tortorella didn’t use consistent pairings at Friday’s practice, so it’s unclear where York might slot back into the lineup if he’s ready to go. He spent nearly all of his time stapled to Travis Sanheim on the team’s top pairing while playing his off-side though, and that would be his likely spot.
He might not be the only Flyers blue-liner returning, either, with Emil Andrae also taking line rushes and power-play drills today, per Charlie O’Connor of PHLY Sports. The 22-year-old had three assists in 10 games this season after a call-up from AHL Lehigh Valley before sustaining a mid-body injury against the Sabres last week. He’s missed the last two games but never landed on IR.
The Flyers have a full active roster and will need to open a spot to activate York. That could be accomplished by retroactively moving Andrae to IR if he’s not ready to play, or they could opt to return rookie defender Helge Grans to the minors after the 22-year-old recorded an assist and averaged 16:02 of ice time across a pair of appearances this week. Placing Andrae on IR would not impact his ability to return for Monday’s game against the Golden Knights, but they would need to make another corresponding transaction to activate him at that time.
York is in the second season of a two-year, $3.2MM contract and will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights next summer. He’s coming off a career-best 10-goal, 30-point campaign in 2023-24.
Why did York go from playing on the PP to be passed by every other D man in the organization for that role?