Luca Sbisa

A day after coming up with 47 saves in his team's win over the Washington Capitals, Flyers goalie Antero Niittymaki was back on the ice yesterday. But at the end of another full day of work, it only took one shot by New Jersey's Travis Zajac to beat him. Zajac's game-winner came at the end of a shoot-out and gave the Devils a 3-2 victory at the Prudential Center. Regulation ended with the score tied at 2-2. Both teams went scoreless in overtime before the Flyers' Mike Richards and the Devils' Jamie Langenbrunner scored during the shoot-out.

NEWARK, N.J. - Eight months is a long time between games. But it's been just about that for Randy Jones, who played for the Flyers yesterday for the first time since having extensive surgery on his right hip in October. "It's about time, I'd say," the defenseman said yesterday morning as he prepared a stick for the game against the New Jersey Devils. "I'm glad to have this over. " Before rejoining the Flyers, Jones played two games with the Phantoms on a conditioning assignment.

The Flyers' defense, which struggled early in the season before being solidified by two trades and the emergence of 18-year-old Luca Sbisa, is about to get even better. Randy Jones has received medical clearance to play and could be in the lineup when the streaking Flyers host Colorado tonight. Jones has not played this season as he recovered from hip surgery. He has been going through practices and said he is 100 percent healthy. "I feel more and more comfortable every day," he said after yesterday's practice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees.

The Flyers will have to make some critical decisions regarding their defense in the coming weeks. One of the more intriguing: Will impressive rookie Luca Sbisa stay with the club or be sent to juniors when Randy Jones and Ryan Parent return from the injured-reserve list? Or will the Flyers decide to keep Sbisa and send Parent to the AHL Phantoms because he has a split contract? Jones is expected to return by mid-December, and Parent, who is recovering from shoulder surgery, hopes to be back when the Flyers start a road trip on Dec. 26. "It's like an eternity to think that far ahead.

The Flyers were looking for an Orange Friday, but they ended up in the red - a 3-2 overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. Wearing their old-school orange sweaters for the first time this season, the fast-starting Flyers whiffed on several opportunities in the second period and let the Hurricanes hang around yesterday at the Wachovia Center. Their six-game winning streak ended when Carolina's Sergei Samsonov - with Matthew Carle draped on his back - glided to the goalmouth and flicked a forehand shot past Marty Biron's glove side with 1 minute, 7 seconds remaining in overtime.

When you talk to the Flyers, they all agree that defenseman Luca Sbisa is mature beyond his years and doesn't play like an 18-year-old. Ah, but he is only 18, and the Flyers are taking extra care to make sure he's just as comfortable off the ice as he looks on it. "He's still a junior-age kid, and it's not fair that he live on his own," general manager Paul Holmgren said. So Holmgren has arranged for Sbisa to live with a local woman, who, over the years, has become the unofficial housemother for some of the younger Flyers.

Jared Ross, the first NHL player born and raised in Alabama, filled in nicely on the Flyers' fourth line. With Andreas Nodl out of the lineup with an undisclosed lower-body injury, Ross chipped in with a valuable 8 minutes, 40 seconds of ice time. While he isn't completely new to the team (yesterday was his third career game) and he didn't notch any noteworthy points, Ross proved he is a more-than capable fourth-liner. Ross led the Phantoms last year with 39 assists and 62 points.

Eighteen-year-old defenseman Luca Sbisa will remain with the Flyers for now, general manager Paul Holmgren said last night. Sbisa, the club's No. 1 selection in the June draft, is part of the Flyers' second defensive pair and was recently inserted on the power-play unit. Holmgren said Sbisa was playing "beyond his years. I like the way he carries himself. " As of yesterday afternoon, the Flyers - whose defense has been ravaged by injuries - had still been thinking of sending Sbisa to junior hockey.

An optimist would point out that the Flyers picked up a point in each of their last two games, against a physical San Jose team that looks like a Western Conference powerhouse. A cynic would point out that the Flyers are allowing 4.8 goals a game, the worst figure in the NHL, and that their 0-3-3 record matches the longest winless start in their history. A realist, like defenseman Kimmo Timonen, would point out that, any way you look at it, the Flyers need to improve their all-round play if they are to be a factor in the Eastern Conference.

DENVER - The news on Ryan Parent is exactly what was expected - he'll be out up to 10 weeks, after shoulder surgery yesterday. The news on fellow defenseman Randy Jones was a pleasant surprise - instead of the 12 to 16 weeks of recovery from extensive right hip surgery yesterday, Jones might beat Parent back into the lineup. "The doctor got in there and what they thought was a boney issue in the joint apparently wasn't," general manager Paul Holmgren said last night. What that means is that Jones did not have to have part of his hip shaved and will not take as long to recover as originally thought.