Tocchet added during the post-practice presser<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s not clear when or how Ristolainen got hurt. He had one shot on goal and was pointless in 14:34 of ice time, spending portions of it on the third pairing with Hunter McDonald but also finding a bit of time with Travis Sanheim. Ristolainen\u2019s last shift was with 7:34 to go in the third period, a shift that was 34 seconds. So, with the big Finnish defender out of the lineup for some time, it\u2019s up to the Flyers to once again take the \u201cnext man up\u201d mentality during this upcoming stretch of games and into the Western Canadian road trip next month. <\/p>\n
As it stands now, Ristolainen \u2014 if out for two full weeks \u2014 would be returning to the lineup on either Nov. 9 against Vancouver on the road, or Nov. 11 when the Flyers could be in very tough against the high-flying Edmonton Oilers. Should the Flyers opt for a more cautious approach, then Ristolainen could be back in the lineup at the end of the road trip when they visit Columbus on Nov. 14 before returning home for a game against Edmonton the following night.<\/p>\n
Ristolainen out, York back?<\/p>\n
With Ristolainen out, and the status of Cam York still not quite crystal clear, it looks like the Flyers will keep Oliver Bonk in the lineup for the foreseeable future. And, given how well he\u2019s looked alongside Sanheim, Bonk is most likely going to remain on the top pair for the next little stretch of games. During Monday\u2019s practice, the pairings were as follows: Sanheim and Bonk, Nick Seeler and Jamie Drysdale, Hunter McDonald and Simon Benoit. A fourth pairing saw York with David Jiricek, but nobody knows for sure when York \u2014 who played last on Oct. 8 against Ottawa \u2014 is going to be good to go and return to action. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think when it gets to a certain level with injuries, it has to come from a player,\u201d Tocchet said regarding York\u2019s possible return sooner than later. \u201cThere\u2019s only so much a doctor can say, and the pain tolerance. To me, it\u2019s on the player, \u2018Hey man, I\u2019m ready to go!\u2019 And that\u2019s what you want to hear. Whether he says that when he\u2019s ready to go. It\u2019s hard because I can\u2019t make the decision for him, if his hands or his legs don\u2019t feel great, I can\u2019t make a guy play. It\u2019s up to him. At the end of the day it\u2019s going to come from the player.\u201d<\/p>\n
If York returns to action, it\u2019s most likely that he will be seeing himself paired again with Jamie Drysdale on the second pairing. That would then mean Seeler would probably be with Hunter McDonald. Or Simon Benoit. Or David Jiricek. It\u2019s doubtful York would be working his way back into game shape with a slot that Ristolainen had against Anaheim to start the game. Simply put, the Flyers don\u2019t quite have the luxury now of putting a traditional top four defensemen down into a third pairing to work the rust off. That is, unless the Flyers seem to be putting more trust in McDonald now given his play of late. McDonald was seen on Monday taking some lessons on fighting or clutching for a fight from Seeler and Tocchet at one point. McDonald fought A.J. Greer on Saturday and while he never got clocked, he was doing his best to protect himself and be on the defensive.<\/p>\n
Bonk blooming<\/p>\n
One player that Tocchet seems to be trusting more and more is Oliver Bonk. Bonk has been eating a bunch of minutes with Sanheim, and relatively holding his own as the team\u2019s number two. However, Tocchet is also mindful of trying to protect Bonk from being exposed against the best the opposition has to offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve been playing better hockey the last three or four games, and I think that pair has done a nice job,\u201d Tocchet said of Bonk and Sanheim. \u201cSo it\u2019s hard to shelter his minutes in a sense. But we\u2019re probably going to have to give a couple of minutes to some other guys. We need some guys to pick it up a little too to help us in that situation. As long as he\u2019s doing his job out there, we\u2019re going to keep throwing him out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After not playing since Oct. 3 due to injury, Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen returned to action on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-896000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}