'Ghost' eager to get healthy, doesn't want to disappear

THE NICKNAME fits now in ways that none of us, including him, ever anticipated. These days, Shayne Gostisbehere moves among us like an apparition, truly the "Ghost" of a Flyers future as uncertain as his own.

He has been living here, in South Jersey, working to repair the left knee that buckled in an early November game with the Phantoms. A nudge, an awkward bang against the boards and a "weird" feeling as it bent unnaturally, and the Flyers' well-chronicled prospect had suffered the first real injury of his hockey career, only days after his first taste of NHL action, winding up on the operating table days later, as surgeons repaired an ACL tear.

"Yeah, it scared me," Ghost said yesterday after another morning of rehabilitation. "It was kind of grim. But I had great friends and family who kept me positive. It's not the end of the world. And maybe I come back stronger . . . "

The idea is that he will return to the Phantoms sometime in February. But it is more of a hope than a goal or timetable.

"I can't skate very long," he said. "It gets pretty sore. My cardio is a little down right now. I'm just trying to take it easy. I don't want to have any setbacks."

He is, after all, still only 21, and, even without the injury, the idea that he could provide any sort of messianic deliverance from this team's current plight was as far-fetched as general manager Ron Hextall said it would be, even after watching that ridiculous plus-7 performance in the NCAA championship game here last April.

Ghost gets this. Really. Even before Hextall gave him a taste of NHL action with those two games in late October.

"I'm the biggest critic of my game," Gostisbehere said. "And what those two games told me is that I wasn't anywhere near ready for that. I wasn't ready to be thrown into the fire. I knew what I had to work on, and that's what I was doing. And I was getting more confident in my game. And then the injury happened.

"Coming off a major injury, I'm not even worried about the hockey side right now. I'm worried about just getting healthy and making sure my skating and my game gets to where it needs to be. I mean, of course, I want to be in the NHL. But I need some games right now."

The silver lining of his down time, if there is any, is that it has allowed Gostisbehere to watch more NHL-level play than he would if he were playing in Allentown or even dressing as a Flyer. He attends every home game, sitting at the right hand of Kjell Samuelsson, the Flyers' director of player development and a former Flyers defenseman.

At 6-6, Samuelsson's only similarity to Gostisbehere is that he played defense in the NHL. But you don't play for 16 seasons without making a study of it, and so the tutorial from way up high focuses on the position's nuances, and often focuses on visiting players who more aptly fit Gostisbehere's skill set.

Colorado's Tyson Barrie is built like the 5-11 Ghost, as is Minnesota's Jared Spurgeon. Both are fleet-skating defensemen with good puck skills. Both suffered injuries in their first few seasons in the league via big hits.

"You can pick up little things that you wouldn't see at ice level from above," Gostisbehere said.

If you're smart. Whether it was the Frozen Four or during those early-season games, we've seen enough of him to know he is that, at the least.

"I'm not here to be the savior of anything," he protested when I asked whether he was aware of the focus on him already, but there are very apparent reasons to believe he can be a key part of a rebirth, whether it's his speed, his stickwork, or that booming slap shot of his.

There's also a more subtle one, but no less real. It's a perspective he already has, of getting us immediately the way some of our more famous stars never really did. Enjoying it even.

"I was at one game and I think we were winning, like, 3-0," he said. "And they were struggling on the power play . . . And they started getting booed."

He laughed hard.

"It was just so cool to see. To be in that atmosphere - you want to be in an atmosphere like that instead of a dead atmosphere. I think it's pretty cool. They definitely are the most passionate fans."

Yeah, pretty cool, those boos.

Get well soon, Ghost. The future can't come soon enough around here.

" @samdonnellon

Columns: ph.ly/Donnellon