from Mike Sielski of the Philadelphia Inquirer,
The protocol of the NHL postseason requires Steve Mason to stay quiet about the nature of his "upper-body injury." So even before a Flyers' public-relations representative began shooing reporters away from Mason's locker after the team skated at the Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday morning, Mason peeled off his pads and betrayed nothing about either his condition or the meeting he would soon have with head coach Craig Berube and goaltending coach Jeff Reese.
Every clue - subtle and overt, from how the Flyers have handled the day-to-day finessing of Mason's practice time to his measured, non-denial denials to all questions about his health - suggests that he suffered a concussion when the Pittsburgh Penguins' Jayson Megna knocked him to the ice on April 12.
"I'm not getting into all that," he said before leaving. Presumably, he reserved his frankness for his sit-down with Berube and Reese, and, well, here we are. Mason emerged from that meeting as the erstwhile starting goalie, and the Flyers emerged from Tuesday night down two games to one after a 4-1 loss to the Rangers, their season in peril, their sport's most important position once more a source of angst for them.
Only the Flyers could pull this off. Only the Flyers could tell the world that their No. 1 goaltender was 100 percent healthy again and have it blossom into controversy.
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