Patrick shows his progress, opens camp in practice with Flyers

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VOORHEES, N.J. — The word over the offseason was Nolan Patrick had been making progress.

On Monday at Virtua Center Flyers Skate Zone, Patrick showed his progress.

The 22-year-old center participated in one of the two practice groups on Day 1 of Flyers training camp. While it is just Day 1 and more steps will need to be taken for his return to game action, Patrick's participation in camp practice is notable. In the club's camp before last season, Patrick was out from the onset and diagnosed with a migraine disorder in September 2019. He missed all of camp, the entire 2019-20 campaign and had never gotten cleared for contact.

All of which made Monday's sight notable progress as 2021 camp commenced.

"He's gone through the protocol medically, so from that aspect — his test, his physicals — he's fine," Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said Monday in a video interview. "When we talked yesterday, he wanted to get a couple of full team practices and full team scrimmages in. Then in theory, he should be cleared and fine to go. ... He's cleared for contact, he wants to get a couple of good team practices and that's what he got today — a good, hard 40-minute practice and then we scrimmaged for 30 minutes."

Patrick was on a line with Travis Konecny and Carsen Twarynski to open Monday's session. Wearing a regular jersey and not a non-contact one, he did not appear to be limited in any way. Camp will pick up in physicality and practices will be followed by competitive scrimmages, so stay tuned. We should find out more on where Patrick is and how he feels on his road back to the Flyers' lineup. Leading up to the team's Jan. 13 regular-season opener, Patrick will not have played an NHL game in over 650 days.

More: Patrick doesn't say much at Flyers camp — and does that matter much?

Patrick said he has progressed and felt better every day. He was scrimmaging for a couple of weeks at the practice facility leading up to camp.

"I'm not going to get into too much details about how my head feels," Patrick said Monday in a video interview. "Going to see how camp goes and go from there.

"I'm just trying to go through the scrimmages and see how I feel, see how I feel after camp and go from there.

"I feel good and hopefully get back soon."

Monday was a positive step toward Patrick eventually playing his first game since April 2, 2019.

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