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Pronger 'very' confident he will play in series

UPDATE 2: Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger says he is "very" confident that he will play in the first-round playoff series against Buffalo.

Asked whether he would be ready for Game 1, he said, "I guess you will have to wait and see."

He wouldn't go into much detail, but he skated today with Ian Laperriere with a stick in his hand. He did not shoot a puck and has not shot a puck in two weeks.

General manager Paul Holmgren says he remains "day to day."

UPDATED: Well, we speculated that Danny Briere might have been joking around with the radio hosts in Buffalo.

And he told the reporters in the locker room after Flyers' practice that is just what he was doing.

If we take him at his word, Briere said he "had no clue" about Pronger's status for the playoff series against the Sabres.

FROM EARLIER:

Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger is scheduled to meet with the media today after practice to talk about his status for the playoff series against Buffalo.

All general manager Paul Holmgren would issue yesterday was that Pronger is "day-to-day."

Perhaps the best information thus far has come from teammate Danny Briere, who was on Buffalo radio station WGR this morning and said Pronger will not play in Game 1 and said it was "very possible" that Pronger could miss the entire series.

Briere, of course, is a former member of the Sabres and knew he was on radio in Buffalo. Maybe this was a move to simply boost the hopes of the Sabres fans who once cheered for him.

"Obviously he's a big part of our team. I can't wait for him to come back in the lineup and I don't know when he's going to come back in the lineup, whether it's going to be this series or the next one, if we move on," Briere said. "But we can't use that as an excuse."

Asked if Pronger would be available at all against Buffalo, Briere said, "Yeah, that's very possible. I just don't know, nobody knows when he's going to be ready. I don't expect him to start in the first game, to be there for the first game, but after that I don't know."

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In other news, defenseman Matt Walker has cleared re-entry waivers, according to TSN.

The move is not a surprise, given Walker's injury history.

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We will have more to come from Flyers' practice.