Phil Sheridan: Flyers' stars put bodies on line

Hockey is just different.

The Eagles wouldn't ask DeSean Jackson to run down and bust a wedge on kickoff coverage. The Phillies wouldn't have Roy Halladay close back-to-back games between starts. And the 76ers, well, obviously they wouldn't ask any of their players to inconvenience themselves in any way.

But hockey? Hockey is different. If you're on the ice, you're expected to play the game the right way. That means giving up your body and taking risks and expending yourself on every shift. Those elite players who don't aren't much respected by coaches, fellow players or fans.

That brings us rather neatly to Jeff Carter and Simon Gagne, who broke bones in their feet during Tuesday night's Game 4 against the New Jersey Devils. Gagne left the game after blocking two shots. Carter was injured when teammate Chris Pronger's slapshot caromed off his right foot. But he was playing with a surgically repaired left foot that was broken when Carter blocked a shot last month.

(You wonder if Carter, favoring that right foot, was a tad slow shifting his weight as Pronger's shot bore down. Good luck getting Carter to admit such a thing. He only acknowledges being injured at all because of the surgical screw and the crutches.)

Carter was the Flyers' leading goal-scorer during the regular season. Gagne was their leading goal-scorer for the last decade. They are, by any definition, skill players rather than role players.

And yet there they were, putting their million-dollar body parts in front of chunks of frozen rubber traveling at high velocity.

"It's part of the game," Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said Wednesday. "You'd probably wince more if he got out of the way and went in back of the net. You'd probably do more than wince. It's like anything. Do you want your highly skilled players not being physical in the playoffs? You have to play the game a certain way. You've got to play the right way."

Gagne did. Despite the series of concussions that shortened his 2008-09 season and the hernia that required surgery earlier this season, Gagne was playing very physical, committed hockey in the first four games of the playoffs. He served on a penalty-killing unit that has been overworked against the Devils.

Carter, playing at some fraction of 100 percent after breaking his left foot, was just beginning to look like himself on the ice. Then he took a Pronger bullet off his right foot and is right back on crutches.

"Seems like I just got off these," Carter said.

So now he and Gagne are gone for the rest of this series, and possibly the rest of the postseason - that is, if the Flyers are able to finish off the Devils.

The bad news about Carter and Gagne took some of the joy out of Tuesday's dominant performance, which pushed the Devils to the brink of elimination. But really, the Flyers' three-games-to-one lead looms all the larger now that they've lost two of their top six forwards. They may not be able to win two or three games against the Devils without Gagne and Carter, but they should be able to win one.

After all, they are not beating the Devils with a powerful offense. The Flyers have been winning with the oppressive physical style Laviolette favors. They have been winning with strong goaltending from the unlikely Brian Boucher and with excellent defense. They can keep doing that in the short term without Gagne and Carter.

"It's unfortunate when these things happen," Laviolette said. "We're not going to hang our heads. We're not going to be sorry. You wish you had a healthy lineup. We certainly wish they were in there. They're not. I don't want to dwell on a couple guys who got dinged up last night. I want to dwell on the fact that we're playing good hockey."

Forgive Laviolette for not sounding more sentimental. The coach's job is to keep the rest of his players from using these injuries as an excuse. The unforgiving nature of the NHL playoffs does not allow time for players to feel sorry for themselves.

That 3-1 series lead also gives the Flyers a precious opportunity to end this series quickly and buy themselves as much as a week of rest. For a team that has played 26 games in the seven weeks since the Olympic break, that would be heaven-sent.

"Obviously," Carter said, "that's a goal. The shorter the series, the better for everybody. For Gagne and me, it would be huge. That's more time we would have to recover."

Because even though the official word on Gagne is that he'll miss three weeks, and that Carter is out indefinitely, you suspect that both men could be seen on the ice if the Flyers can extend a second-round series. Broken bones and all.

Hockey is different.