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Carter's bad luck in postseason continues

In the regular season, few players have been as durable for the Flyers as Jeff Carter. Through his six complete NHL seasons, Carter has played in at least 80 games in a season four times. But that is where the luck runs out.

In the regular season, few players have been as durable for the Flyers as Jeff Carter.

Through his six complete NHL seasons, Carter has played in at least 80 games in a season four times. But that is where the luck runs out.

Carter, who sat out the final two periods of Wednesday's Game 4 loss in Buffalo, is likely to be considered doubtful for tonight's pivotal Game 5 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals.

Officially, the Flyers say their leading goal scorer from the regular season is day-to-day with a lower-body injury. No shock. But Carter collided with 6-8 Buffalo defenseman Tyler Myers late in the first period on Wednesday and appeared to go knee-to-knee with Myers.

Both players briefly left the game. Myers was the only one to return.

Carter, who netted 36 goals this season, did not skate with the team's scratches yesterday and was not seen at the team's training facility. He was limping badly leaving HSBC Arena in Buffalo on Wednesday.

Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren denied a WIP report that Carter will be out 10 to 14 days with a sprained medial collateral ligament. He said Carter is day-to-day.

Carter missed 11 playoff games last season when he broke a bone in his foot that required surgery during Game 4 of the first round against New Jersey. He missed the entire second-round matchup with Boston but returned for the end of the conference finals against Montreal.

Andreas Nodl, who has been day-to-day with an upper-body injury that paved the way for Nik Zherdev to return, did not skate again yesterday. If both Carter and Nodl are unavailable, coach Peter Laviolette likely would turn to Jody Shelley.

"Without commenting on Jeff, there's a lot of confidence in this room, in our team and what we've done," Laviolette said yesterday. "We've dealt with injuries and we did it last year in the playoffs, we did it during the course of this year. All teams do it. All teams go through it. I think if your team is strong enough, injuries come and go, and you're able to move pieces around without affecting the final product."

War of words?

After the Flyers' Game 4 loss in Buffalo, captain Mike Richards said the Sabres got away with murder.

Richards said he wasn't complaining about the 5-minute major he was whistled for by Francois St. Laurent at the end of the second period. Instead, he was referencing dirty, behind-the-play moves, such as when Patrick Kaleta timed opening the door to the Sabres' bench just as Zherdev was being hit in the third period. Zherdev fell into the Sabres' bench. Video of the hit is at http://bit.ly/hKWqkp.

That didn't stop Sabres coach Lindy Ruff from offering Richards a little cheese yesterday.

"I just feel that they're doing a lot of whining," Ruff told the Olean Times Herald. "They're really doing a lot of whining. I didn't hear any whining when they had 10 power plays in Philly, and I didn't hear any whining when the power plays in the first game were lopsided. But all of a sudden there's all this whining about, we're getting away with murder. That's a bunch of crap. That's for the officials to read. That's, 'Here, let's get the next call.' Let's just play."

Richards said he wasn't going to get involved in a he-said, she-said argument.

"That's fine," Richards said. "He seems to have a way with the media. He does this, I think, every time they're in the playoffs. We're just focused on [tonight] . . . and not worry about the other stuff. We've done a good job of walking away from the scrums and not feeding into their BS."

Double bonus

As the series shifts back to South Philadelphia, the marketing folks at Wells Fargo will continue to bask in the glory as one of only five naming-rights sponsors of buildings that are hosting both the NHL and NBA playoffs this spring.

Well, that is, at least for a few more days.

According to Front Row Analytics, as published by Forbes.com, the Wells Fargo Center, Boston's TD Garden, Chicago's United Center, Los Angeles' Staples Center and New York's Madison Square Garden will each yield a minimum of $280,000 in value for its naming-rights sponsor in just the first four playoff games each arena is guaranteed to host.

The figure is based on airtime of sponsor signage during a game's broadcast as compared with the cost of a 30-second spot on television. It's about 3 minutes of exposure during an NHL game and more than 5 minutes during an NBA contest.

For locally televised games, the number works out to about $66,495 for an NHL game and $77,283 for the NBA. Those numbers skyrocket to $788,417 (NHL) and $795,617 (NBA) for national television audiences.

CoreStates Bank, purchased by First Union, then Wachovia and now Wells Fargo, agreed to a 29-year, $40 million naming-rights package in 1996. The Flyers' run to the Stanley Cup finals last season, which Front Row said could net up to $3.8 million in free airtime, would more than pay for the $1.37 million Wells Fargo spends on the contract annually.