It’s as good a time as any to take a broader look at the Philadelphia Flyers, who hit the 20-game mark (10 at home, 10 on the road) with a somewhat disappointing 8-10-2 record and in sixth place in the Metropolitan Division, which has already seemed to separate itself into four teams that can contend for a Stanley Cup, and four that are either rebuilding or have real issues.
Let’s get right to it.
Stock up: The Travises
The two longtime pals have simply been the Flyers’ two best players this season. Travis Sanheim has anchored the defense group, which has endured a number of early-season injuries, while Travis Konecny has been the most consistent and dangerous forward.
Sanheim is probably the Flyers’ MVP at the quarter point, contributing at both ends of the ice and playing the best hockey of his career. He’s a plus-2 on a team that’s been outscored by 17 at five-on-five. He’s third in the league in ice time with 25:33 per game, despite getting hardly any power-play time. Prior to Wednesday’s game, Sanheim eclipsed 30 minutes in three of the Flyers’ previous five games as the team continues to wait for others to get back into the lineup. All 12 of Sanheim’s points have come at even strength, putting him just one behind league co-leaders Alex Pietrangelo, Cale Makar and Owen Power. It was notable that when Rod Brind’Amour was asked before Wednesday’s game what the Flyers were doing differently from the last time they faced the Hurricanes just two weeks ago, he told reporters: “Sanheim is in the rush every play, like an old Bobby Orr back there from back in the day, which is fun to watch. … So, we’ve got to be aware of that guy.”
Konecny remains the heartbeat of the team and is on a path toward his best season yet. He’s averaging more than a point per game (23 in 20 games), is on pace for 45 goals (11 so far), and is the Flyers’ team leader with five power-play goals. We’ll see how his eight-year contract that kicks in next season ages over time, but Konecny sure isn’t slowing down. Just the opposite.
Stock down: Young scoring wingers not named Konecny or Michkov
While Konecny is pulling his weight, and Matvei Michkov is still producing through some inevitable rookie growing pains, every one of the other scoring forwards has been disappointing so far. Owen Tippett, Joel Farabee, Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink, four young wingers with upside that the organization was hoping would take another step, have just 14 goals in a combined 76 games.
There have been some signs that they’re all working their way out of early season slumps: Three of Tippett’s four goals have come this month and he’s had the puck on his stick more often, Farabee has had a number of scoring chances lately and has been on the receiving end of some compliments from John Tortorella, and Foerster is starting to get back to playing hard along the wall and winning his battles, which he wasn’t doing much of earlier (a demotion to the fourth line seems to have gotten his attention).
But the overall consistency from this group hasn’t been there.
Stock up: Special teams
Yes, the power play has hit a bit of a snag lately, going just 2-for-20 in the last seven games. But losing both quarterbacks in Jamie Drysdale and Emil Andrae has predictably thrown it off course, while other players have been shuffled in and out of the two units lately, too. The Flyers sit 20th in the NHL in power-play percentage (16.9 percent), which is still more than three percentage points higher than they averaged from 2021-22 through last season. Once they get all their pieces back, and assuming Michkov becomes a more dangerous threat offensively as the season moves along, they could very well end up in the top half of the league.
The penalty kill has simply picked up where it left off last season, sitting in fourth place in the league at 86.6 percent. The Flyers have just one short-handed goal, but are still getting chances the other way: According to Natural Stat Trick, they are generating 9.69 scoring chances per 60 minutes on the penalty kill, third in the league.
Stock down: The centers
The good news on Wednesday is that Ryan Poehling’s shot from distance beat Pyotr Kochetkov in the second period, tying the game at 1-1. It was Poehling’s first goal of the season, and just the second from a Flyers center since Oct. 26 (Morgan Frost had the other on Nov. 5).
The bad news is that Poehling’s turnover later in the game helped to generate what turned out to be the game-winning goal, while Scott Laughton’s misplay early in the first period that Carolina also capitalized on earned the alternate captain some lengthy time on the bench.
The Flyers just don’t have a high-end, play-driving center on the roster, while the guy that has the best chance to develop into one, Frost, has been a healthy scratch for four of the last five games.
Is it time yet for general manager Daniel Briere to get a little aggressive to try and find one? Is it worth circling back to the Ducks to gauge interest in and maybe even take a chance on Trevor Zegras, perhaps? Zegras is only signed through next season, so even if the Flyers acquired him they wouldn’t be committed to him long term. It just feels like it’s time for Briere to try something different here.
Emil Andrae has a growing confidence with and without the puck. (Kyle Ross / Imagn Images)
Stock up: Emil Andrae
It was unfortunate timing for Andrae when he got hurt late in last Saturday’s win over the Sabres, as he was earning big minutes and showing that he might be ready to stick around the NHL full-time. Fortunately for him and the team, Andrae was on the ice on Wednesday, suggesting he could be back soon. He’s second on the Flyers in expected-goals share (55.6 percent), but just watching him (and speaking with him) it was becoming evident that he has a growing confidence with and without the puck.
Stock down: Jamie Drysdale
Frankly, Andrae is turning into the player that the Flyers were hoping Drysdale (1 goal, 2 assists in 15 games) would become. It’s much, much too early to write off Drysdale, who it seems was rushed into the NHL by the Ducks which may have stunted his development. But he’s going to be under the microscope when he returns from his upper-body injury, because the Flyers may not want to dress all of Andrae, York and Drysdale in the same games for fear of being too small on their back end (for his part, Tortorella said he’s not afraid of doing this, when asked a week ago. We’ll see.)
Stock up: Sam Ersson
Don’t blame Ersson for the Flyers being fourth from the bottom of the league in goals-against average (3.50) through Wednesday’s games. The Flyers’ No. 1 goalie has been generally solid all season, with a 2.70 GAA and .902 save percentage in 11 games. He just seemed to be hitting his stride, too, before coming out of the lineup with what’s believed to be a groin injury: in his last five appearances, Ersson stopped 109 of 116 shots for a .940 save percentage in 257 minutes, with a 3-0-1 mark.
Both Ersson and Tortorella mentioned early in the season when the goalie’s stat line wasn’t so hot that they believed he was playing better than the numbers suggested. That proved to be the case, because when the Flyers finally got some structure back in their game, Ersson was outstanding.
The 25-year-old still has an outside chance to make Team Sweden for the upcoming 4 Nations tournament, although Minnesota’s Filip Gustavsson is probably the odds-on favorite to be the No. 3 there behind Jacob Markstrom and Linus Ullmark. But, considering his injury has occurred twice in a short period of time, he may be better off sitting it out anyway. The Flyers need him healthy if they’re going to have any chance at hanging around the playoff race due to their mishandling of the backup goalie position (see below).
Stock down: The backup goalies
Yes, they’ve been a bit better lately, but there’s still a tremendous amount of uncertainty with both Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov. It’s not a stretch to suggest that neither of them would be on any other NHL team’s roster at the moment.
Their combined numbers are awful: 3-8-0, with an .874 save percentage and 3.70 goals-against average. Their numbers are nearly identical (Fedotov’s .875 save percentage is slightly better than Kolosov’s .872, while his GAA of 3.69 is also just a tad better than Kolosov’s 3.71). Cal Petersen seems to be an afterthought in the organization at the moment, but he would have done better than that.
If there’s reason for hope it probably lies more with Fedotov, who won three straight starts and looked to be settling in before he allowed a backbreaking soft third-period goal on Wednesday in the Flyers’ 4-1 loss to Carolina. He made some decent saves before that — his stop on Jack Roslovic in the first period on a two-on-none break seemed to give the Flyers energy at the time — but his overall body of work this season has still been subpar.
Kolosov should return to the AHL when Ersson recovers. It’s not fair to Fedotov to have to share the net with him, and it’s not a good message to other players currently on the Phantoms who are working hard to make the leap, either. If he doesn’t want to play in Lehigh Valley, the Flyers should simply cut ties with him.
(Top photo of Travis Sanheim and Travis Konecny: Kyle Ross / Imagn Images)
