All the tiime off has helped van Riemsdyk fully heal

Whenever the NHL resumes, and it still plans to resume this season, James van Riemsdyk will be available to play.

That will be him with nine healthy fingers and a tenth that is, well, strong enough.

The 31-year-old Flyers’ left wing has not played since leaving a March 4 game in Washington after fracturing his right index finger. He missed the next three games then wound up with two bonus months of recovery time when the NHL locked itself down to help slow the spread of coronavirus.

That left him close enough to full strength for a return.

“For sure,” he said. “I’ve been able to play for a couple weeks, maybe a little more now, and things are feeling pretty good. I wouldn’t say it’s back to feeling like it was before, but it is certainly well enough to play.”

As the Flyers have enjoyed a mostly satisfying 69 regularseason games, van Riemsdyk has been inconsistent but occasionally vital. He has played in 66 games, the exact number he did all of the previous season, with his goal production dipping from 27 to 19.

He did not score a goal until the eighth game of the season and had one goal in his last seven games. But as a player with a $35 million contract in the prime of his career, van Riemsdyk remains critical to the Flyers’ success. That, he showed by scoring six goals in a five-game December spurt.

During the hiatus, van Riemsdyk has been a player’ representative on the NHL’s Return to Play Committee, the purpose of which is clear by its title.

“We’re trying to take one day at a time and go from there,” he said. “But things can be a little flexible with the timing of things. We want to see what works best when things are safe and appropriate.”

The injury to van Riemsdyk was originally characterized by Alain Vigneault as similar to the one sustained earlier by Scott Laughton, who missed 13 games over 28 days in October and November.

While not in the manner it was anticipated, a similar layoff appears to have benefited van Riemsdyk.

“I have been using this time wisely,” he said, “to get that thing back to where it was.”

• • •

As part of the “Talk With a Pro” project of the United Heroes League, van Riemsdyk enjoyed participating in a video chat with the family of Navy pilot Tom Luft of Media.

The program connects pro athletes with the children of military families. Luft has served for 18 years.

“That was pretty cool,” van Riemsdyk said. “We had some fun with it. The two kids there were particularly funny. They asked some good questions and some questions that I don’t generally get all the time. And it was fun for all of us. It was good.”

Luft’s sons — Everett, 11, and Avery, 9 — also joined the call.

“One of the questions was what my favorite emoji was,” van Riemsdyk said. “That’s obviously one you can’t lie about because when you pull up your keyboard to type something, it shows the ones you’ve used the most. The blasting one was my most recent one. And the second was the one with the two fingers on his chin.

“So I guess you learn something new about yourself every day.”

The United Heroes League endeavors to help all 5,000,000 military children with life skills through sports. Since 2015, van Riemsdyk has been one of its ambassadors.

• • •

Van Riemsdyk is a new, firsttime father, having recently celebrated the birth of a daughter, Scarlett. He and wife Lauren are in the process of building a new home in Minnesota.

For the event, and to limit any potential exposure to a virus along the way, van Riemsdyk’s parents, Frans and Allison, drove 19 hours from their Middletown, N.J., then self-quarantined before meeting their granddaughter.

“One of the silver linings of this stuff is that I have been able to stay at home for a while and just enjoy all the little moments about being a dad,” van Riemsdyk said. “Obviously, it’s a life-changing moment.”