The coach and general manager wanted to change the way the Flyers approached their defense, getting away from big and physical and moving to a more agile, offensive skating style.

On paper they had the players to do it:

Braydon Coburn, Kimmo Timonen, Ryan Parent and Randy Jones all fit the bill. Steve Eminger, Ossi Vaananen and Lasse Kukkonen could skate and move the puck as well.

With Derian Hatcher out with a long-term injury and probably not coming back and Jason Smith let go in free agency, the change had been made.

But before the Flyers could skate one step into the new season, their plans suffered a major crimp, putting them in search mode to look for a possible replacement while placing the youngest rookie defenseman in franchise history on their official roster.

Neither Ryan Parent nor Randy Jones will be able to start the season and both will likely undergo surgery. That decision was made and announced Wednesday for Parent, who tore the labrum in his right shoulder during preseason play.

And yesterday, Jones revealed that he has multiple tears in his right hip and most will likely miss 2 months recovering from surgery.

"There's a few tears in there," Jones said yesterday. "There's a labrum tear, there's cartilage and there's a ligament, there's a bone impingement. There's a lot of messy stuff going on that over time has caused groin pain and hip-flexor pain and everything else."

While no official decision has been made, Jones will not be available for the start of the season. His MRI results and other tests have been sent to Nashville hip specialist Thomas Byrd for study and Jones said he will likely travel to Tennessee as early as today for an appointment.

"Surgery will be the best thing to get this fixed and take the discomfort and pain away," Jones said. "It's a smarter decision to get [surgery] done now so I can be back before Christmas. So I would like to get it out of the way, but I would also like to play. It's a decision where we have to sit down and figure it out."

Jones said he does not think the injury was the result of any specific hit but something that developed over time.

"It's very disappointing. I was really looking forward to this camp and the start of the season and getting off to a good start," he added. "It's a little setback, but hopefully I can get this fixed and come back healthier than before."

Holmgren said yesterday that he is looking at various scenarios, but with the Flyers already up against both the salary cap and contract limit it will not be easy to bring in a new player.

"We're checking around on a number of different things, but we have players here, players on the Phantoms that have played preseason games, and we're confident they can do the job if that's the direction we go in."

For now the stopgap measure has been signing 18-year-old Luca Sbisa to a pro contract and keeping him in the NHL rather than sending him back to junior hockey.

Keeping a defenseman that young for the season is a risk, but with the loss of both Parent and Jones, the Flyers seem willing to take the risk, especially if they can't trade for another veteran.

Sbisa yesterday said he felt bad for his new teammates, but recognizes the opportunity.

"It's always bad for the team but it's an opportunity for me," Sbisa said. "It's a very good chance, so I have to do my best during the time that the guys aren't playing."

Still, the plan to change the makeup of the defense remains and it has become the focal point of the difference between this team and the one that went to the Eastern Conference final last season.

"Our makeup is a lot different, but I think it's more mobile than it was," Stevens said. "I think our puck skills as a group are better than it was and while I still think that we lack some of that physical play, we still have a competitive group out there."

At least that's the hope.

"Last year we went with a lot of guys we were hoping would have a big year, we had nine young guys up front and we were kind of wondering if they could get the job done and the answer was yes,'' Stevens said.

"That's the way it will be this year on defense. Steve Eminger is a young kid that we think a lot of. He's got good size, good mobility, he's the righthand shot that Jason Smith provided.

"I think he's a higher-in-skill guy than [Smith], but [Smith] had more physical presence. And then Vaananen is a big guy that plays with a little bit of an edge who looks like he is going to be a good player for us. Hopefully those two can fill the void in terms of size and ability to defend."

Stevens continued: "And then after that hopefully [Coburn and Jones] continue to get better. We had big hopes for [Parent] this year. [Kukkonen] is a dependable guy and Sbisa is kind of a wild card, whether we keep him around or not.

"He's certainly an impressive young player. He's got size and he's a good player on both ends of the rink and he looks like he can absorb the physical play." *