The hidden breakout season from Cam York

Most people are happier with Cam York’s season to date than I am.

The reason? They see him being a functional top-pairing defenseman who only seems to get better when he plays more minutes, and they’re shocked. I’m not shocked. I was wholly convicted to that being the ultimate outcome. Did it come sooner than I expected? Not really.

I’m a little surprised by just how rapidly he’s improved as an in-zone defender. At this point, I consider him their best defender overall. York always had a knack for absorbing the speed of the opponents’ rushes and denying them at the blueline. He’s now grown into someone who can kill cycles with timely disruptions or blocked shots and become an integral piece behind one of the league’s foremost penalty kills.

But York has done so at the cost of some of his on-puck brilliance. He’s less active creating exits out of the defensive zone. He has a uniquely advanced feel for stretch passes to strain defenses vertically that we haven’t seen a lot of this year.

All in all, it’s limited his offensive impact. And I don’t just mean his point totals. I mean it’s limited his ability to help the Flyers generate more scoring chances than they otherwise would without him.

That’s showing in Cam York’s results in various RAPM models:

Posted for writing purposes. pic.twitter.com/ZIldFvGNqa

— Derek (@SuitableAlias) March 21, 2024

The approximation of York’s defensive value has remained largely static going from one year to the next, but I actually think that’s reason to confirm it has improved. Hockey is a possession game. When you’re driving offense efficiently, you’re possessing the puck and therefore preventing chances from being accumulated against you.

That’s what York was doing in prior seasons. He was defending through puck possession. This year, that hasn’t really been the case. Instead, he’s had to defend through the sheer merit of his defending. That he’s kept his defensive results status-quo regardless, and while taking on significantly greater minutes against top competition? His defensive game has been as good as Tortorella advertises.

But his offensive game has completely collapsed. How come? In my view, there are 2 reasons that sort of bleed into each other. With the latter being significantly more intriguing than the former.

Cam York: Puck Play

York has spent most of this year being fairly inactive with the puck. He’s efficient whenever he touches it, finding the next play at a high rate. Plays don’t die on his stick. Rather, he makes plays when the opportunity arises. But the opportunity simply doesn’t arise that often.

I think some of this can be attributed to playing with Travis Sanheim. Sanheim is a puck-dominant defenseman, and not a particularly cerebral attacker. I don’t say that as an insult to his actual intelligence, but rather to say that he’s a highly individualistic creator.

He gets the puck and he uses his legs plus his hands to try and create an opportunity on his own. If that means passing the puck, he’ll do it late and after an extended carry. He doesn’t think to create team-wide advantages. He plays a 1 on 1 game within a 5 on 5 structure.

That often creates situations where York is watching Travis do his best Erik Karlsson impression, and praying to God that the puck doesn’t go the other way at the wrong time.

I don’t think is a major explainer for York’s inactive puck play, but I think it’s a minor contributing factor.

A bigger factor is that I believe York “understood the assignment.”

York has always been working at a handicap relative to his larger peers. I don’t necessarily mean an on-ice handicap either. The disadvantage has been one of perception by both observers and coaches. There aren’t many people willing to embrace the exception of smaller defensemen who don’t score 80 points in a season.

There aren’t many coaches willing to trust an undersized defenseman with a heavy defensive burden. Tortorella isn’t generally among those exceptions. I believe York went into the year understanding that.

He clearly spent the entire summer dedicated to doing things like putting on weight and strengthening his in-zone defensive play. He put away his skills with the puck and his ability to trigger transitions, because he knew he was going to have to earn his coach’s trust another way. Since the only measurable offensive contributions in this environment is generally goals and assists.

He wasn’t going to produce 60 points in this environment. So he dedicated all of his energy to developing his defensive game.

As far as making a coach trust him? It was necessary, and it worked. But I think putting away his puck play, not sharpening that tool, has made him less sharp in that regard.

From what I understand, York generally spends his summer months training with fellow Michigan alums Quinn Hughes, Owen Power, and Zack Werenski.

Let’s just say those training sessions probably look a little different than whatever was being cooked up at Voorhees from a puck handling perspective.

It served his purposes. York had the hockey world against him, in a sense. There just aren’t many examples of people like him. Proving to someone like John Tortorella that he was an exception was a necessary first step.

But I don’t think his relative inactivity on the puck is totally explained by factors in York’s control. And I think there’s something within these numbers that is making this collapse seemed more pronounced than it is.

To be more precise, it’s turning what’s likely a small and temporary regression into an apparent collapse.

Better With or Without Who?

For those unfamiliar with how these JFresh or EvolvingHockey models work, they attempt to capture the individual player’s impact on the amount of expected goals the team generates (or suppresses) with them on the ice opposed to their teammates.

It’s an estimate. Because it’s impossible to fully parse out where the credit actually belongs. Sometimes, there are edge cases in which someone is getting outsized credit for someone else’s work.

I think Cam York’s estimated offensive value is one such phenomenon. Through Natural Stat Trick, you can use their “line tool” function to figure out specific instances of how a player performs while with another player. Or separate.

York’s results are… instructive.

Cam York – Nic Deslauriers

York with Deslauriers (154 min): 1.68 xGF/60, 2.27 xGA/60, 42.5% expected goal share

York without Deslauriers (987 min): 2.47 xGF/60, 2.41 xGA/60, 50.6% expected goal share.

Cam York – Cam Atkinson

York with Atkinson over (254 min): 2.24 xGF/60, 2.74 xGA/60, 44.9% expected goal share.

York without Atkinson over (888 min): 2.4 xGF/60, 2.29 xGA/60, 51.2% expected goal share.

Cam York – Scott Laughton

York with Laughton (255 min): 2.03 xGF/60, 2.88 xGA/60, 41.4% expected goal share

York without Laughton (892 min): 2.46 xGF/60, 2.25 xGA/60, 52.2% expected goal share.

That’s without accounting for any of the overlapping minutes. Now, let’s show you… York’s Nirvana minutes!

In 582 minutes without any of these 3 forwards:

2.64 xGF/60, 2.26 xGA/60, 53.9% expected goal share.

That expected goal share, if it represented all of York’s minutes this season, would be top 30 in the NHL.

Among other top pair defenders in the NHL, it would be 12th.

I believe the models are wrongly attributing the success of York in these other minutes to some of the forwards he’s playing with during that time.

Is Morgan Frost a 96th percentile defensive center in the NHL? Probably not.

Is Tyson Foerster the best defensive player in the NHL right now? No. He’s certainly good, but that sounds inflated to me.

Did Sean Walker go from cap dump to Norris-level impacts in a summer? Revelation he may be, but that’s exaggerated.

To even suggest Cam Atkinson is merely in the 20th percentile instead of much lower in offensive and defensive impacts? That’s really generous.

What’s happening here is becoming increasingly obvious to me.

York needs viable top 6 or top 9 players to play with in order to unlock the fullest potential of his offensive game.

Asking him to carry literal anchors is a bridge too far. It’d be a bridge too far for any player in the volume that he’s done it.

However, the Flyers’ forward group has frankly been full of anchors. I listed 3 of them, and I don’t think I’d really have to stop there.

The model is seeing York sinking underneath the weight of these anchors and thriving with Morgan Frost, then concluding:

“Shit. I guess Morgan Frost is just the GOAT.”

In reality, Morgan Frost is a good top 6 player. But when York’s other options are literal anchors, he looks like Pavel Datsyuk’s descendant.

To distill this all into a sentence?

The Flyers’ lack of quality depth at forward, especially down the middle, is masking what’s largely been a breakout season for Cam York.

And unless you have a 70 point minimum for a #1 defenseman, he’s walking the path of a future top defender.

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Mandatory Credit: AP