Per the Flyers’ Twitter account, Kevin Hayes underwent a procedure Tuesday morning to drain fluid from his adductor region. The team says he’ll be out 3-4 weeks.

The same was said about Ryan Ellis, and haven’t seen or heard from him in almost two months. Derick Brassard injured himself two minutes into a game on November 23rd, and was labeled day-to-day and is still missing from the lineup.

The Flyers are already without Sean Couturier (upper-body injury), Derick Brassard (lower-body injury), Nate Thompson (shoulder) and now will be without Kevin Hayes for at least a month.

Hayes is currently tied for 13th on the Flyers in points through 20 games this season. You could tell all year Hayes just hasn’t been his usual self after undergoing two groin surgeries this offseason. 

The Flyers only have Claude Giroux, Morgan Frost, Scott Laughton, and Connor Bunnaman at center now that’s on the roster. They sent Jackson Cates back to the Phantoms this morning and activated Max Willman, who’s a winger, to the active roster as well.

You really do have to feel for Kevin Hayes. Having two abdominal surgeries before the season has to be extremely tough. Giroux & Ghost had the same surgeries a couple of years ago, and it took both of them at least a year to look like themselves again.

Hayes had TWO of those surgeries and lost his brother Jimmy before the season. I, along with Scott Laughton apparently, give him a ton of credit for working his ass off to be on the ice with his teammates. Hayes even apparently knew he was going to have to have this done and still played in NY last night.

With Hayes now out for the foreseeable future, the Flyers are now down Sean Couturier, Kevin Hayes, Derrick Brassard, and Nate Thompson from their center depth. The lineup for tonight is definitely going to look different from what I had in my preview article, I’m just wondering how much different is Yeo going to go?

Maybe this?

Farabee – Giroux – Atkinson 

Lindblom – Laughton – Konecny 

Van Riemsdyk – Frost – Mayhew

Willman – Bunnaman – MacEwen 

They’ll have no time to think about it because they have a hockey game in two and a half hours. We’ll see what Yeo ends up doing with the lines as we get closer to warmups, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Morgan Frost moved up in the lineup. 

The Flyers haven’t scored more than three goals in their last six games, so I’m not really opposed to any type of change with the forward groups. I do think Yeo likes the way Lindblom has been playing with Laughton and Konecny though, so I don’t see him messing up that second line.

Like I said, who knows what Yeo does now with Hayes now gone from the lineup for at least a month.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw German Rubtsov get called up if Derick Brassard isn’t back in the lineup soon. Rubtsov has had an up-and-down year but recently has two assists in his last four games. The Flyers are getting pretty desperate now with centers, and if they don’t get Brassard back soon or decide against a Jackson Cates recall, we could see German back in O&B. 

Mandatory Credit: Kyle Ross-USA TODAY Sports