Was JVR a Healthy Scratch Last Night or Did the Daily News Swing and Miss?

We all like JVR. From all accounts – both public and private – he’s a good guy and will probably be very successful here. He's strong, shows great promise, and seemingly has a good attitude.

But.

But he was given a Kevin Kolbian extension this summer – six years, $25 million – based, at least in part, on his beastly playoff performance last season (seven goals in 11 games). That’s a small sample size– again, the Kolb thing.

So when this Frank Seravalli report popped up in today’s Daily News… well, it raised a few eyebrows: [Philly.com]

Then, van Riemsdyk was scratched from the lineup without explanation.

According to a team source, speaking to the Daily News last night on a condition of anonymity, Flyers coach Peter Laviolette was "especially critical" of van Riemsdyk's performance on Wednesday night – despite the fact that he scored a highlight-reel goal against the Sabres – and called him out during a team meeting.

Officially, the Flyers said van Riemsdyk is "day-to-day" with a nondescript "lower-body injury."

Now, let’s take this with a grain of salt. That’s not to question Franklin's integrity, but we should keep in mind that one of Seravalli’s sources once had the Flyers on the verge of making a franchise-shaping offer to Steven Stamkos:

Stamkos would instantaneously vault the Flyers back into the Stanley Cup contender category. So, is it a pipedream? Or closer to reality? We'll know on Friday.

Call me crazy. But my sources aren't.*

It was a pipedream. And the sources may have been crazy. The Flyers never made Stamkos an offer.

However, as Seravalli points out, van Riemsdyk’s “injury” is described as… you guessed it: lower-body. Nothing more. Some think he hurt “it” (perhaps his hip) late in the game against Buffalo. But, this afternoon, Paul Holmgren and Peter Laviolette told reporters that the report was wrong:

Once again, Carchidi is the cold water on Seravalli’s grammatical boner. Seravalli never Tweeted those comments from the coach and GM, but did, in spectacularly passive fashion, Tweet Lavs' extraordinarily passive "good hockey player" endorsement of JVR.

It’s entirely possible Homer and Lavs are lying (they do that quite a bit), and it’s also entirely possible that Seravalli’s source is completely full of shit. I’d say it’s 50-50. Either way, though, it’s interesting. JVR has five goals so far (pretty good), but he hasn’t looked anything like the playoff version of himself that gave Homer confidence to bring a gun to the left side of the locker room and wipe out partiers row. If JVR was, in fact, a healthy scratch last night – like he was on several occasions last year – it’s not a good sign.

Something to keep an eye on.