It had already been a rough year for Phantom sophomore Patrick Maroon. From October 16th through December 26th, 24 games, he didn't' score a single goal. Over two full months. After putting up a very impressive line his rookie season with the Phantoms in 2008-09 with 23 goals and 31 assist in 80 games it looked like only a matter of time until the 6'4 Maroon would be standing in front of the net on the Flyers 2nd powerplay unit, doing what Scott Hartnell should be doing and Mike Knuble used to. But he now found himself in the proverbial slump. For Maroon to see any time with the Flyers this season he would have most likely needed to be on a 40 goal pace with the Phantoms, if not 50.

But he kept working and playing hard and was actually still getting in on scoring chances, with assists filling the void where some of his goals should have been. But a guy like him needs goals, not Jared Ross numbers. And right when he scores goals in back to back games in late December he gets run from behind during the middle of a seemingly harmless everyday hockey scrum. Check it out:

The play actually doesn't look that malicious. The Rats player looks like he was jumping in to grab Maroon, and that's actually what he claims too. Just a little too hard. But regardless of the opposing player's intentions Maroon was unconscious for 10 minutes, and that hit probably caused Paul Holmgren shuffle his Maroon card even further back in his AHL call up deck - which incidentally serves as a prospect trading deck when you turn it upside down.

But you can only control what you can control, right? And maybe that's what Maroon's thinking these days, after having already seen how dark things can get for a young forward hoping to taste that NHL french roast. Maroon scored two goals in his return to the Phantoms on January 27th and netted his 7th of the year last night against the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins in a 4-3 loss. If you stretched his year to date performance out over 80 games he would stand to finish with 16 goals and 47 assists this season. Which would be a significant increase in points overall at the cost of actually scoring less himself. As it stands he's currently second in team scoring with a Phantoms team that is .500 and has a little over 30 games left to go in the season.

If he goes on a tear Maroon could possibly be in consideration for a spot, if only occasional, on the Flyers squad next year. Up front expiring contracts are hard to come by. Betts has to be resigned, Asham probably not. Powe's definitely going to be a Flyer next year, Carcillo maybe. But all Maroon can do about all of it is to keep scoring and pile those points on. Whether it's in a Flyers uniform or not he'll hit the NHL ice at some point in the not so distant future. There will always be teams that suck. If this were 2006-07 he'd be on the Flyers Saturday night in Minnesota.