Samuel Morin out until February with torn ACL in right knee

Dave Isaac | The Courier-Post

It’s not just a nightmare season for Samuel Morin. His offseason will extend, in all likelihood, into 2019.

The hulking 6-foot-7 defenseman got hurt in the first period of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms’ record five-overtime game that began May 9. He attempted to hit Charlotte Checkers forward Patrick Brown along the boards and tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. He is expected to have surgery this week and according to Flyers general manager Ron Hextall is “probably out until February.”

He didn't have the surgery sooner because another part of the knee was affected and he had to wait two and a half weeks.

Morin couldn’t have had much worse luck as his whole season was riddled with injuries. He made the Flyers’ roster out of training camp but was sent down to the AHL didn’t play in the NHL until a two-game recall in November. He only played 15 regular-season games and three playoff games for the Phantoms. Most of the missed time was due to a recurring “lower-body injury” unrelated to the knee ailment.

“People tend to forget that Sam’s been a healthy player for the most part in his career prior to that,” Hextall told the Courier-Post. “We’re writing this off as — he had a tough year, there’s no doubt about it in terms of the injuries. We don’t think any less of Sam than we did in September of last year. We still have high hopes for Sam and we know he’s gonna turn into a good player for us.”

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Morin, who turns 23 this July, is a restricted free agent. The Flyers will undoubtedly re-sign him and he will likely start the season with an “injured/non-roster” designation.

Because of when he signed his entry-level contract, Morin will not be waiver exempt on his new contract. If he is to go back to the American Hockey League he would have to clear waivers and it’s very unlikely that 30 teams would pass on plucking him off the Flyers’ roster for free.

He acknowledged, as he worked his way back toward returning in the Phantoms’ second-round victory, that all the injuries had him quite frustrated this season.

“It’s pretty crazy. I didn’t miss a game (for injury) my first two years,” he said early this month, one week before the injury occurred. “This year I’ve only played how many? Fifteen? Sixteen? Sometimes it’s just about luck and sometimes just preparing my body, warmup and stuff like that.”

It will be a much longer wait now and it was already a slow progression for the 2013 first-round pick to make it to the NHL.

He still hasn’t in a full-time capacity and the road ahead of him is a long one.

“I need to get re-signed. There’s a lot of stuff going on, but I’m a really confident guy and I think I can play in the NHL when I’m healthy,” Morin said. “I just need to get a little bit of luck on my side and I think I will. It’s been a long process for me, a long road, but I’m gonna make it.”

Dave Isaac; @davegisaac; 856-486-2479; disaac@gannett.com