I spent Saturday night on the couch under a blanket, with my head pounding and everything seeming foggy as I drifted in and out of consciousness rather than attend a Halloween party.

I can only imagine that’s what Gostisbehere is experiencing right now (minus the chills) after he had to leave the Flyers impressive 4-2 win over the Maple Leafs in Toronto Saturday.

He was a victim of an unnecessary hit by Leafs center Leo Komorov that drove him into the boards face first, resulting in a probable concussion.

It’s the second head injury this month for Gostisbehere, who was in danger of missing the season opener after a similar hit in the Flyers’ final preseason game, but he played and prospect defenseman Sam Morin sat in the press box for the first four games of the season before being sent back to the Phantoms.

With Andrew MacDonald already sidelined for at least a month with a knee injury, the Flyers defense could be in dire straits if Gostisbehere has to miss any extended time.

And since I’m feeling pretty crappy myself, let’s just move on to the takeaways:

 

1) What’s left of the defense?

O.K. first we have to look at the hit on Gostisbehere and once again shake our heads at the incompetence of the officials:

https://twitter.com/CFJastrzembski/status/924446357833834502

I mean you can see the referee in the background watching this play happen, and he just turns away and lets the hit go.

Komorov hits Ghost from behind, right between the numbers, and drives him face first into the boards.

That. Is. Illegal.

How there’s no penalty called there is beyond me. I know it’s a fast game and things get missed, but that’s why several years ago, the NHL switched from one referee to two per game, so that things like this don’t get missed, and yet…

Credit to Gostisbehere, who after a minute, got up, made his way to the bench, and on his very next shift made a perfect bank shot pass to Travis Konecny who then made an even better pass to Valtteri Filppula for what would eventually be the game-winning goal:

https://twitter.com/CFJastrzembski/status/924434224006025216

It was Gostisbehere’s 12th assist of the season, tops among defensemen in the NHL. His 13 points are not only best among league defensemen, but ranks tied for eighth among all players in the NHL.

But back to the hit… We are all assuming it’s a head injury, but the Flyers don’t tell you anything for certain. They keep you guessing and are calling it an upper body injury.

However, if you look at the hit again, there’s a chance this is an arm/shoulder injury as well as his left arm and shoulder really get pinned, and his left arm is crunched against the unforgiving dasher.

And, the fact that he came back onto the ice for another shift might mean it’s not a head injury – so we’ll have to wait and see.

But now, the Flyers are down to five defensemen, so someone has to be brought in. But who?

Sam Morin has to be the frontrunner since he was the eighth guy the first four games of the season, but the Flyers may want to opt for more of a puck-mover to replace Gostisbehere.

This is why I suggested Mark Friedman last week when MacDonald went down. He only has two assists so far with the Phantoms, but he’s similar in style to Gostisbehere and could fit that role better than Morin.

Mark Alt is another possibility, he’s gotten off to a solid start for the Phantoms and is more of a tweener because he isn’t an electric skater, but provides offense and uses his size on the defensive end.

T.J. Brennan has NHL experience, but he’s hurt. Anyone else?

https://twitter.com/CrangesMcB13/status/924073262145040386

No. They couldn’t be… could they?

I sent a message yesterday before the game to both Ron Hextall and Streit’s agent Pat Brisson asking about this and neither answered.

I don’t think this is realistic. After not being able to play for the crummy Montreal defense, he was waived, went unclaimed (he was only making $700,000 with the Canadians, so he would have been really cheap as a waiver claim) and then rather than take an assignment to the AHL, agreed with Montreal to have his contract terminated, making him a free agent.

Streit, 39, did go to Pittsburgh to receive his Stanley Cup ring and probably made his way back here since he still has a home in Philadelphia.

It’s more than likely that he just asked the Flyers for permission to use the rink to get a skate in while they were away.

I was also told that Streit is debating between waiting for the phone to ring or calling it a career and getting into coaching – more in a player development role, which he has discussed with at least one team I am aware of (not the Flyers).

So, although the Flyers might be desperate, I don’t think they’re that desperate.

 

2) The new third line

I’m sorry, but I just can’t call the line of Taylor Leier, Scott Laughton and Michael Raffl the Flyers fourth line anymore.

They play like a prototypical shutdown third line and provide additional offense that you don’t see many fourth lines offering.

Not only that, Laughton and Leier also play together on the penalty kill. So when you see Laughton posting 16 minutes in a game and Leier 13 minutes – as they did last night – while a line of Matt Read, Jori Lehtera and Travis Konecny all had less than nine minutes of ice time, I think it’s safe to say this unit is not a fourth line, no matter what a scout may have told Elliott Friedman of Sportsnet in Canada.

They have been a revelation this season, and arguably the most impressive decision by Dave Hakstol aside from moving Claude Giroux to the wing and promoting Sean Couturier to top line center.

I mean, look at this play:

https://twitter.com/CFJastrzembski/status/924420573102567424

Raffl doesn’t get an assist, but he makes the play happen in the neutral zone. Leier and Laughton do the rest moving the puck nicely and setting up Brandon Manning for the goal. It’s really smart hockey by that trio. Hey speaking of Manning…

 

3) Man-Dog

Woo is back!

Manning was stylin’ and profilin’ in the locker room because he had a damn good game. Seriously. And not just because he scored a goal either.

Nope, Manning may have played his best game as a Flyer. He also picked up an assist. He played 20 minutes – filling in a lot of shifts with Gostisbehere out, got a couple other good shots on goal, and played physical with three hits.

I normally don’t consider Manning anything more than a 6th/7th defenseman. But, the guy is a hard-worker and it’s nice to see him get rewarded for his effort.

He’s going to be playing under a bigger spotlight if Gostisbehere has to miss any extended time, so things could start getting tougher for him, but for one night, he can strut in that robe proudly. Good game, Man-Dog.

 

4) Scoreacheck

Jake Voracek finally scored a real goal:

https://twitter.com/CFJastrzembski/status/924423426252656640

He scored against Ottawa, but that was a pass that ricocheted off a Senator into the net. This time, it was intentional. And it has to be a relief to him.

For all the times Voracek frustrates you with his defensive shortcomings, the guy can flat-out make up for it on the offensive end.

With two more points, he now has 16 this season, putting him third in the NHL behind only the sick duo of Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov in Tampa, who are on a ridiculously torrid pace playing together for the first place Lightning.

Frankly, the entire top line is scoring at will for the Flyers. Couturier’s 13 points is tied for eighth in the league and Giroux’s 12 has him tied for 16th in scoring. That’s 41 points from the line in 11 games. Pretty impressive.

Oh, here’s Giroux’s goal from the game. Check out the pass from Voracek:

https://twitter.com/CFJastrzembski/status/924436372491993088

 

5) Look, a good goaltending performance

Credit Brian Elliott for rebounding nicely from his woeful start against Anaheim. He made 28 saves, including this one on Kasperi Kapanen:

https://twitter.com/CFJastrzembski/status/924429219354103809

The Flyers need more starts like this from Elliott. He has won five of his seven starts, but hasn’t looked good in all of the wins. This one he did, giving up two goals to Nazem Kadri, neither of which were his fault.

It’s going to be important for the goaltending to be reliable for a stretch here if Gostisbehere is going to miss extended time. This was an encouraging first step.

 

6) Nolan Patrick

Patrick missed his second straight game with an injury. The Flyers won’t call it a concussion. But this was my favorite quote from Patrick when interviewed by NBCSports Philly (that’s still so clunky to say) beat guy John Boruk in Toronto Friday:

“It’s my first time that I’ve ever had any kind of injury like this before,” Patrick said. “It’s a lot of protocol things you have to go through. I think the league is pretty big on that kind of stuff. There’s a few things I got to do first. I’m feeling good though.”

Don’t come down too hard on him, Hexy. He’s only 19. He hasn’t mastered the art of lying about injuries yet. Give him time. It’s O.K. that you still refer to it as an upper body injury. We all know he’s concussed. It’s cool.

This brings me to my final observation (since I was too sick to come up with a good Loose Pucks list:)

 

7) Shut it down

The Flyers in the third period really put a clamp on their own zone and made life miserable for the Maple Leafs.

They switched their style and went into shutdown mode, which is different than usual, as the Flyers are a team that likes to keep the gas pedal to the floor.

But, playing short a defenseman and against a good offensive team, the Flyers decided to go into a defensive-first system – and it worked.

The Flyers are now 5-0-0 when leading after two periods – and maybe found something that could work for them moving forward if they have a two-goal lead, or better, heading into the final 20 minutes.