The Flyers have a hidden strength…

It’s no secret. The Flyers are not a very good hockey team. The public record is littered with statements to that effect by people with roster building authorities, such as the head coach, John Tortorella. Perhaps he should be better known as the shadow GM.

Even the public GM has made similar statements, and the public President of Hockey Operations has echoed these sentiments. There’s a broad consensus among the powers-to-be that the team, as presently constructed, isn’t very good.

And yet, hidden from view—in the fog of wars that are usually lost—is a nascent structure that could be developed into the heart of a contending team. It just takes the right moves and enough ambition to break league-norms wide open.

The Flyers have a hidden strength. A competitive edge over other hockey teams that, if fostered properly, could be the foundational piece to a winning roster.

In the 24-25 season, there are only three teams to have three defensemen with an on-iced expected goal share of 55% or larger in their 5v5 minutes. The three teams? The Edmonton Oilers, the New Jersey Devils, and the Carolina Hurricanes.

All three of those teams have one thing in common: Stanley Cup aspirations. Two of those three teams have another thing in common, and this one is more obvious: they have very good defensemen in their top 4.

What if I told you there could be a fourth team, and that fourth team would be one entrenched in the bottom 10 of the NHL’s standings? The Philadelphia Flyers could, in fact, be that fourth team. All it would take is a dash of common-sense rejiggering.

The first step to claiming that status is to call up Emil Andrae immediately. Posthaste. It should have happened already. Unfortunately, he’s hurt now, so reaping the benefits of him in the lineup will have to wait. Still, he is the first key to unlocking a machine on the backend.

Among defensemen who have played more than 325 minutes this season, Emil Andrae ranks second in expected goal share at 60.25%. He is sandwiched right between Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard, one of the elite defensive pairings in the NHL. In fourth place is Luke Hughes, another young top 4 defenseman just finding his stride in the league.

For the second piece of this puzzle? Let’s narrow the scope to all NHL defensemen who have played more than 275 minutes at 5v5 play since December 8^th. Among that pool of players, only 3 defensemen rank higher than Jamie Drysdale in expected goal share.

The three ahead of him are Noah Hanifin, MacKenzie Weegar, and Alex Pietrangelo. Longtime analytics darling #1, and two of the cornerstones behind one of the league’s elite defense cores. Vegas won their Cup in 2022 on the strength of 1 forward line and an NHL-elite assembly of defensemen.

Drysdale’s 60.98% expected goal share would also make the Flyers one of two teams with two defensemen who can manage a 60%+ expected goal share. The other is the Edmonton Oilers, and the two who do it for them both play on the same pair.

Without Travis Sanheim on the ice this season, Cam York has a 57.6% expected goal share. Now, it’s important to note that the sample for this season is only 80 minutes large.

However, if I include the sample from last season, York has played 400 minutes without Travis Sanheim. In those 400 minutes, he’s managed a 54.93% expected goal share. Given that such a share is a contested point shot away from meeting our criteria, I hope you’ll forgive me for counting it.

York has been better without Sanheim for even longer than the previous two seasons. If I were to expand the sample to include the 22-23 season, York has managed a 53% expected goal share without Sanheim.

The sample is about as close to conclusive as you can get, sitting at 1,234 minutes. That number is 51.9% with Sanheim in 1,646 minutes. In 2,100 minutes without York? Sanheim is sitting at a 47.7% expected goal share.

York has been better off without Sanheim than Sanheim has been without York for three years now, but in the previous 2 seasons, Sanheim has also held his own well. He’s managed a 52.8% expected goal share without York over 835 minutes.

In aggregate, what the Flyers have at their disposal is one of the very best defensive cores in the NHL at controlling the flow of play. To have this in the lineup every night requires nothing more than for players to keep doing what they’ve been doing for hundreds of minutes on NHL ice.

And yet, I’m not entirely sure the Flyers fully realize what they have in place here. I’m not sure they don’t, to be fair. In fact, the decision not to draft Zeev Buium looks a lot less funny in the light if they were to use all these assets properly.

I’m not sure they do for two reasons. The NHL is obsessed with two things. Size in defensemen and blaming things besides goaltending for the actions of goaltending.

Defensemen who are under 6’2 have been looked at askance for as long as the NHL has existed. People like to say they’ll make exceptions for 80-point players, but that’s more so out of necessity than true comfort. For example, look at how much vitriol Erik Karlsson has had thrown at him through his career. People claim they’re comfortable with smaller defensemen, but it’s usually a lie.

It shouldn’t be, though. The need for size in defensemen is the relic of a bygone era. People talk about net-front battles as if there’s still a need to cross-check your way through every problem that occurs in front of the net. In reality? The net front scorers of today are far more cerebral, and they don’t allow themselves to have hockey sticks shoved into their spinal cord for no good reason.

Net-front engagements of today are more of a dance than a battle, where players maneuver for positioning using slipperiness and timing. A defenseman’s size is immaterial in that battle. It’s mental warfare rather than physical, and that will only become truer as time goes on.

Size in defensemen isn’t useless, but it’s more of a neutral trait than anything else. And the team that realizes this the fastest will have a competitive advantage over the rest of the NHL.

That links up perfectly to the second problem that people have: blaming everything besides goaltending for the actions of bad goaltending. When your team is allowing goals in excess, the natural inclination is to find a thousand different reasons you’re allowing goals in excess. It can’t just be the goaltending. We’re more mature than that. We are enlightened. And therefore, we have nuance.

So, we dive into every goal that’s allowed and find the defensive breakdown. That practice neglects a simple truth. There’s a defensive breakdown on every single shot on goal. On every single scoring chance, there’s a defensive breakdown of significant magnitude.

Hockey is like blitz chess. The frenetic nature and breakneck pace mean that even grandmasters make mental errors and miss tactics they’d otherwise see in a less rushed environment. In simplest terms, everyone is botching something.

The Flyers have terrible goaltending. Because they have terrible goaltending, they will allow goals in excess until further notice. Their expected goal shares won’t matter as much until they acquire better goaltending or develop it. We can point to every mistake on every scoring chance, but the mistakes won’t ever dissipate.

Mistakes don’t matter. Goals matter. And goalies are the ones who determine how many errors turn into goals. The Flyers should push forward, seizing upon the competitive advantage that is one of the best defensive groupings in the NHL at controlling play.

As time goes on, their goaltending will need to improve. And they’ll need to be a more consistent finishing team.

Both things are important, but separate issues, and beyond the purview of this writing.

Fixing these issues can come later. In the meantime, seize your advantage, Flyers.

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