Flyers place goalie Sam Ersson on injured reserve; defenseman Helge Grans to make his NHL debut

Sam Ersson has been bitten by the injury bug again.

The Flyers goalie was placed on injured reserve Monday with a lower-body injury. Ersson sustained a lower-body injury on Nov. 2 against the Boston Bruins, leaving in the first period. He missed two games and returned Nov. 9, stopping 28 of 31 shots in a 4-3 shootout loss before starting one more game, a 4-3 shootout win last Monday against the San Jose Sharks.

Ersson participated in the team’s practice on Wednesday but left early. Ivan Fedotov has started the past two games.

With defenseman Cam York not yet ready to come back from an upper-body injury sustained in October, and Emil Andrae out with a mid-body injury he suffered in the third period of Saturday’s win against the Buffalo Sabres, the Flyers called up Helge Grans on Monday.

The 22-year-old Grans, a 6-foot-4, 205-pound defenseman, will make his NHL debut tonight.

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“Alyn [McCauley, a Flyers assistant general manager] gave me a call yesterday,” he said. “Really excited. My mom and dad are also here right now, so it‘s a little bit extra nice to have them here.”

Sitting in his stall at the back of the Flyers locker room in Voorhees, he added with a big smile, “It’s really the perfect time.” Morgan and Maria Grans just happened to be on vacation in the United States when the call came in.

Acquired in the three-team Ivan Provorov trade, Grans posted eight points in 56 games last season with Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League. This season he has a goal and two assists in 14 games. Grans was a second-round pick of the Los Angeles Kings in 2020.

A self-described two-way defenseman who can handle the puck and likes to play a defensive role, Grans feels he has become more confident offensively with the puck this season. He will be paired with Egor Zamula on Monday night against the Colorado Avalanche (7 p.m., NHL Network/NBCSP+).

“It’s two young D, we are the same age. It’s going to be fun to play together, so we’ll see how it goes,” the 22-year-old Zamula said. “But I’m not nervous, and he’s not nervous. He was very good in the morning skate, so he’s excited and he’s happy, and he brings good energy in the locker room.”

Zamula remembers his first NHL game on April 27, 2021, against the New Jersey Devils, calling it a dream. For Grans, it’ll surely be a similar feeling — but he’s going up against an Avalanche team that features stars like Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Cale Makar. Maybe it’s good that he’s only seen them on television.

“Let him play,” coach John Tortorella said when asked how they get him engrained into the systems. “Just touch upon things. He’s not hearing anything, in this type of situation, he’s not hearing anything. So we’ve done a couple of things this morning, but not a whole bunch of information.”

Injuries happen in the NHL but the bench boss knows that despite seeing guys get hurt — which is never a good thing — it does allow the Flyers to get a peek at the young kids in the system. Winning is important but, “We have to find out about these other guys.”

“Gives us a chance to look at a big right-handed defenseman here against one of the top teams in the league,” Tortorella said. “[They have] pretty good speed. He’s going to get acclimated, or he’s going to see some stuff pretty quickly here.”

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With Zamula and Grans paired up, Erik Johnson will play with Nick Seeler, and Travis Sanheim and Rasmus Ristolainen will be reunited. According to Tortorella, how much time each pairing will get is TBD against a team averaging 3.39 goals per game (ninth-best in the NHL) — kind of.

“Don’t read into it too much [into the pairings] because we’re going to play the [expletive] out of Sanny and Risto,” Tortorella said. “So there are going to be mixed pairs, I’ll tell you that right now.” Grans had some good moments in training camp and Tortorella is anxious to see him play. Regardless of who he goes up against, it will be a special moment as he marks down Game 1. It’s quite a juxtaposition to his fellow blueliner, Johnson, who will be celebrated before puck drop for reaching 1,000 NHL games on Saturday.

“Two extremes,” captain Sean Couturier said. “But I’m sure if you ask EJ, he’ll tell you it flies by quick and I’m sure he remembers his first game. So, I think you just got to enjoy it as much as you can.”

Johnson played 717 games with the Avalanche and was a part of their 2022 Stanley Cup team. ... Aleksei Kolosov will start against the Avalanche. He was injured in the team’s morning skate before the matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 7, and has not played since.

Around the rink is a new segment every Friday online and in Saturday’s paper, highlighting the local ice, ball, and inline hockey scene. Submit entries to jspiegel@inquirer.com.