UPDATE 12:05 PM EDT

It is now confirmed: The Flyers have assigned Matt Walker to the Phantoms in order to clear salary cap space for the callups of Ben Holmstrom and Harry Zolnierczyk.

In addition, the Flyers have placed Chris Pronger on injured reserve. This means that the Flyers have gained an open roster space. It has nothing to do with cap space, as Pronger is NOT on long-term injured reserve.


UPDATE 11:00 AM EDT

The Flyers have called up Ben Holmstrom and Harry Zolnierczyk from the Phantoms. It appears increasingly likely that Danny Briere and Matt Read will be unavailable to play tomorrow night in Buffalo. Zac Rinaldo is also nursing an upper-body injury but returned to practice. The callups will enable the Flyers to dress a full lineup of forwards.

In order to make salary cap space for the callups, it appears that Matt Walker ($1.7 million cap hit) has been sent to the AHL. If so, he would require recall waivers to come back. The roster move remains unconfirmed as of this writing.

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At its root, the whole Ilya Bryzgalov media availability flap was not (or at least should not have been) about whether a particular player is there to provide colorful quotes. It was certainly not about the goaltender's need to focus on his game. Rather, it was fundamentally about team control of the flow of information.

Apart from the Bryzgalov situation -- where the team (mostly) gave in by the end of the day -- the Flyers maintained a firm grip on a piece of information that has more on-ice relevance: the team's mounting injury problems and whether they will be able to dress a full lineup of forwards come tomorrow night.

The Flyers had three forwards miss practice yesterday: Danny Briere (who sat out Saturday's game), Matt Read and Zac Rinaldo. The only information released what that all three are "day-to-day" with upper-body injuries.

Now, we all know that NHL teams are borderline paranoid about revealing information on non-obvious injuries (such as Chris Pronger's eye injury). The Flyers' in particular make extensive use of the lower/upper body designations while inevitably downplaying the severity of pretty much every injury.

It is quite possible that Briere, Read and Rinaldo will all be in the lineup tomorrow night when the Flyers travel to Buffalo to take on the Sabres. Then again, it's possible that one or more will not be ready to play. Hopefully, more will be known about each player's status during practice today and before the game tomorrow.

Considering the fact that the Flyers carry 13 forwards, having two players out would force the cap-strapped club to play a forward short and dress seven defensemen. Of course, the status of Briere is the most critical to the club. Read, who centered the second line in Briere's absence on Saturday, plays in all game situations. Rinaldo doesn't play a lot of minutes but he has brought energy to the fourth line.

Part and parcel to the potential absences of Briere and Read is where the Flyers are going to get offensive support for the Claude Giroux line if Briere and/or Read are unable to suit up in Buffalo. The onus would fall squarely on the shoulders of James van Riemsdyk and Jakub Voracek to step up their games, with Wayne Simmonds also needing to pick up some of the slack.

On Saturday night against Carolina, the Flyers were basically a one-line team from an offensive standpoint. Fortunately for the club, the trio of Giroux, Jaromir Jagr and Scott Hartnell had a monster game. But that's not going to happen every night. If the Flyers are to win in Buffalo, they will likely need some contributions from other lines.

Moving forward, I'm sure that Peter Laviolette would like to get a longer look at JVR on a line with Briere. They looked very good together in the Winnipeg game. In the Carolina game, van Riemsdyk had one outstanding shift in the second period where he drove hard to the net. The team needs a lot more of that tomorrow night, whether or not Briere is in the lineup against his former team.

With all that being said, I get the feeling that Briere will suit up tomorrow night if at all possible. Whatever ails Read and Rinaldo must have happened during the game against the Hurricanes.

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