Defenseman Nick Seeler rejoins Flyers’ lineup: ‘We missed him terribly’

The Flyers’ heartbeat is back.

Injured on March 4 against the St. Louis Blues, Nick Seeler will return to the lineup against the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday. He missed the past 11 games with a lower-body injury after a slap shot by Blues defenseman Colton Parayko went off his left ankle.

“I think getting back to my game as quickly as I can is probably the best thing for me, and that includes blocking shots,” said Seeler, who did get credited with a blocked shot on the injury. “But [also] just playing simple and playing my game and hopefully get back to that tonight.”

The defenseman will have some extra padding on his ankle to try and avoid a reoccurrence. He has another layer of the hard exterior of a hockey boot — a shot blocker — around the bony protuberance and a pad that goes up higher, around the top of the skate.

Seeler was paired up with Erik Johnson during the team’s morning skate. It’ll be a shift for Seeler who had a mainstay on his left for most of the season. Two days after Seeler was injured, his defensive partner Sean Walker was traded to the Colorado Avalanche. For most of the season, the pairing was one of the Flyers’ best — at both ends of the rink.

But the loss of Seeler for a good stretch was magnified in two spots. While the team remained among the league’s best in terms of shots allowed, hits, and blocked shots, they have struggled on the penalty kill and in goals against. With Seeler, in the first 63 games of the season, the penalty kill was No. 1 (86.5%) in the NHL. Without him, it is 31st (64.3%). In that same time frame, the goals-against average was the 10th best (2.90) to start, and without him, it has jumped to 4.00.

“A lot of people don’t give him credit, he plays fast,” said coach John Tortorella. “Sometimes it’s all over the place and you never know what’s going to happen but the puck is up the ice. He plays fast. Shot-blocking we missed him terribly. You see our penalty killing has had some struggles; a lot has to do with [that] we’ve changed our back end a little bit.

“Huge addition for us in just being that presence in the room too.”

The room is looking forward to getting Seeler back in the mix. The defenseman brings intensity, a fire, and a high level of grit to the Flyers game. There’s a reason he is No. 1 on the squad — and No. 2 in the NHL — on The Inquirer’s “Gritty Meter.”

“Super important guy,” Joel Farabee said. “Just the way he plays, block shots, he’s really tough, really hard to play against. I think it’s really hard to find guys like that in the league nowadays. So we’re super pumped to have him back.”

Seeler will come in handy as the team tries to seal a postseason berth across the final eight games of the season. It begins on Saturday night when they try to control rookie phenom Connor Bedard and the Blackhawks.

» READ MORE: Ivan Fedotov’s addition shakes up the Flyers’ goalie rotation. Here’s where it stands.

“You can get momentum in a lot of ways and I think Seels is really good at grabbing momentum back with the way he plays hard; whether it’s a big hit, big penalty kill, block shot, whatever it is,” said Travis Konecny, who referred to Seeler as “the heartbeat of the team.

Sam Ersson will start in net. ... Noah Cates missed Thursday’s game due to personal reasons and was back with the team at morning skate. He did line rushes with Sean Couturier and Denis Gurianov. If Gurianov is in, it would be his first game since March 14. The forward, who was acquired at the trade deadline, did not play the past seven games and has only appeared in three games for the Flyers. ... Ivan Fedotov participated in his first full team skate.