A #1 Defenseman in the NHL. If you don’t have it, you want it. If you have it, you cherish it. It’s become a mythical creature as much as a hockey position, with phrases such as “True #1” becoming commonplace in the general hockey discourse. The Flyers haven’t had a #1 Defenseman in a very long time.

Ivan Provorov was supposed to buck the trend and be the one. With all due respect to him, he hasn’t. When Provorov failed to fill those shoes, the Flyers suddenly had no defenseman who seemed ready to do it in his stead. No prospect who was ready to reach that level of proficiency.

But what if they did have that prospect, and they just didn’t realize?

Better yet, what the hell is a “True #1 Defenseman?”

In my eyes, a #1 Defenseman is someone I can put on the ice against the other team’s best players and still expect to win those matchups as much as I lose them. Or, more ideally, win more than they lose.

With the advent of modern analytics, it’s really easy to track who’s doing that and who isn’t. But even before they existed, it was possible to just know.

It was impossible not to notice that the Red Wings just seemed to always be playing in the offensive zone when Nicklas Lidstrom was on the ice. Impossible not to see how brief their defensive zone sequences were before he was masterfully orchestrating a breakout and sending play in the other direction.

Nobody had expected goals to measure just how much of play a defenseman is really driving, but you knew it when you saw it. If you knew to look for it.

How do these defensemen manage to pull off the feat of singlehandedly ensuring their team gets more and better chances than the other team?

They do it by making a tremendous impact on the ice in not just one aspect, but in multiple aspects of the sport. They aren’t shutdown specialists. They aren’t all-offense guys. They’re something different, and something more.

Primarily, there are three kinds of contributions a defenseman can make to the team. There’s offensive contributions, defensive contributions, and puck moving or transition contributions.

A #1 is excellent in two, if not all three categories. Two is most common.

Charlie McAvoy is a sublime defender and supreme puck mover, and his offensive activations are good but not fantastic.

Victor Hedman is a standout offensive defenseman with sublime puck moving skills who–when he really wants to–can be among the best shutdown d-men in the sport.

Jaccob Slavin is the league’s premiere shutdown defenseman whose puck moving acumen is subtly phenomenal. His offensive activations aren’t exactly filled with creativity.

Miro Heiskannen is one of the best puck movers in the sport who also happens to be one of the best defenders. And this year, he’s shown some real juice offensively.

I could go on and on. But the trend will just continue if I get to names like Adam Fox and Cale Makar and Zack Werenski. Hell, even Josh Morrissey is fitting this description this season. The league’s best defensemen–without exception–stand out in at least two of the three categories.

That third area can range to anything from “merely serviceable” to genuine weaknesses. As long as a defenseman has two standout traits, they can be a #1 NHL defenseman. If they lack any distinct weaknesses, then it’s a bonus.

All of this is preamble to setup this statement: I believe Cam York’s ceiling is a #1 defenseman in the NHL.

It was not his draft day projection. The selection was lamented for its perceived safety, after all.

But Adam Fox’s draft day projection wasn’t a #1, either. He went in the 3rd round. Same thing with Jaccob Slavin. Roman Josi was taken in the 2nd round.

Zack Werenski was taken after Ivan Provorov. Provorov was labeled a potential #1 on draft day, and Werenski was not. The results were exactly the opposite.

McAvoy was picked 14th, in the exact same slot as York, back in 2016.

Draft day projections are often wrong. And frankly, they’re wrong even more often in the case of defensemen. The volatility rises even more in the case of d-men, because there are more paths to being that standout #1.

Draft day projections have been wrong before, and I think they were wrong again.

York is either already satisfying, or well on his way to satisfying all the criteria.

A #1 Defenseman Wins Matchups, Especially Against the Other Team’s Best Players.

Cam York leads all Flyers skaters in xG share at 54.15%.

The next closest skater is Lukas Sedlak who is no longer with the team. Nick Seeler comes after that, who has never played this season above the third pair while York has spent most of his time here in the first or second pair.

The next closest Flyers Top-4 defenseman is Ivan Provorov who has a 44% xG share on the season, though I must say that playing with DeAngelo certainly tanked those numbers to points lower than they ought to be.

Specifically as the top pair, York and Provorov have a 52.35% xG share.

They’re winning matchups on a team that is not accustomed to defensemen winning matchups, especially at the top of the lineup.

On a macro level, getting York to the level of a #1 is as simple as seeing him do the exact same thing for 3 more minutes a game. I’m not going to say that’s easy, but it’s certainly doable.

It becomes even more realistic when you consider that York just turned 22 years old this month. There’s plenty of developmental runway left. And even better, he’s played mostly every game this season on his off side. For the first time of his life, at that.

Move him to his natural side and give him another two years of development, and it isn’t hard to imagine him doing the same stuff he’s doing now for 3-4 more minutes a game.

That’s the best part of all this. York fulfilling this ceiling doesn’t require some kind of developmental miracle. It’s all small, incremental steps that he can really fill himself. And should, just with the passage of time. The passive gaining of experience.

But what about the micro level? He’s winning these matchups, sure, but how is he doing it?

Is it prone to regression? Is all of this likely to fizzle out? Well, for that, we have micro criteria.

A #1 defenseman has to be exceptional in at least two of the three primary aspects of a defenseman’s role in order to fulfill their mandate.

I believe York will satisfy that criteria. In fact, he’s already close.

We’ll start with his most advanced skill: the puck moving game.

York has all the tools and all the skills to be a dominant defenseman in transition. There’s moments where he already is dominant in transition.

Let’s start with the flashy.

He has the puck on a string, and his lateral movement/edgework is dynamic. His top-speed isn’t Quinn Hughes or Cale Makar like. But his four direction mobility and advanced puck handling makes him as slippery as could be.

Like here, when he slips through the clutches of 2 forecheckers to create a one-man breakout. He nearly loses the puck, but he’s got enough speed to flag it down. In the same motion that he corals the loose puck, he pulls it from his backhand to his forehand and avoids yet another forechecker.

He creates an entry on a give-and-go with Scott Laughton. Then uses his skating and body positioning to protect the puck from a bigger defender (which, really, is most defenders.)

Or here, against a Maple Leafs team that’s among the best in the league. York picks up the puck from the boards as smoothly as one can. There’s two layers of Leafs to work through here. The first layer is comprised of two defending forwards.

The first forward is taking a good enough angle back. But if he commits too hard to York, there’s an easy slip pass to Morgan Frost. He knows that, so he never makes a move to stop York.

The second forward understands that they can’t just let York carry the puck all livelong day, so he steps up to stop him. Without him, there’s nobody to stop Travis Konecny. York threads the pass from his backhand so easily you’d think he’s a playmaking center.

There’s no defending Konecny once he has that kind of runway, and the result is a scoring chance.

York is dangerous in transition because he puts opposing forechecks in no-win situations. The key to what York is doing, however, is by being individually dangerous as a carry threat.

In order to draw these reactions, York has to actually burn people in 1-on-1 situations. He does, all the time.

Whether that’s on the breakout, using head and eye fakes to make forecheckers commit to stopping a pass that’s never coming, then using his superior edges to spin smoothly by them.

Or noticing that a defender is overplaying one side off an offensive zone faceoff, then instantly jamming the breaks and exploding past him in the opposite direction. Both the instantaneous recognition and the effortlessness with which he shifts his weight is equally impressive here.

In an intermission interview, York borrowed a basketball reference to say that he caught someone reaching and decided to teach him a few things.

It’s fitting because York’s entire on-puck game is based on the basketball principle of attracting help from the defense, then finding the openings that help created.

He breaks down defenses with his deception and his skill, then he exploits those breakdowns with his vision.

Everyone wondered how the defense broke down so severely that Frost could just walk casually into the slot and fire one past the goalie. Well, he can thank Cam York for that.

The puck battle creates a scrambled defense. There’s only one defender to pick up York or Frost. It’s a small area 2-on-1 and York recognizes it before he touches the puck. Once he has the puck, he explodes laterally and away from Frost. The defender is forced to follow, or else York walks freely into the slot.

The defender follows, just as York was planning on. He feathers a backhanded pass to Frost, who suddenly has all the space in the world.

York will only add to his bag as the years go on. In much the same way Adam Fox is endlessly expanding his arsenal, I expect the same from York.

As that happens, he will become an excellent offensive defenseman who dominates the transition game.

A defenseman is far more reliant on forwards for their point totals than vice-versa, but York is already among the league’s best at generating expected goals. Which is something an offensive defenseman can control to a greater extent.

Among all defensemen since December 8th, the date of his call-up, York ranks 24th in xGF/60 at 2.9.

He is tied with another defensive wonder prospect in Owen Power.

That’s more than Josh Morrissey, who’s enjoying a point per game run worth Norris consideration, who clocks in at 2.89.

Some of the names under York? Thomas Chabot, Jake Sanderson, Rasmus Dahlin, and Quinn Hughes.

The analytical and statistical results are there. And when you dive into the film, you can see why they’re there.

This isn’t some random occurrence. This is the result of a dynamic offensive game that was slept on because of how subtly precise it is and how easy it looks.

He isn’t constantly blowing by opposing players, though he can manage it. He wanders and roams through the offensive zone, but he does it with purpose.

He’s excelling in the puck moving and offensive portions of the game, and the trajectory is pointing up from here. Not down.

For this reason, and a defensive game that will never be elite but is already projecting to be a strong positive, York looks the part of a future #1.

Listen to The Liberty Yell

Mandatory credit: Andy Ringuette