There has been a lot of discourse lately about a couple of Philadelphia Flyers blueliners, but not because of how they themselves are playing.
Jamie Drysdale and Cam York are having their best seasons so far as pros, but looking at how Flyers fans are acting right now, you’d have no idea. Yes, Cole Caufield is lighting it up in Montréal to start the year. And, unfortunately yes, Cutter Gauthier had a very solid rookie season and is off to a hot start this year in Anaheim. I know it’s easy to dunk on Chuck Fletcher for being incompetent, and I know its easy to be mad at Cutter for throwing his temper tantrum resulting in the Flyers losing an elite goal scoring prospect, but that does not mean Flyers fans (or fans of any other team – looking at you Montréal) should take it out on Drysdale and York.
When looking at how this season has started, we were expecting both Drysdale and York to take another step forward in their development. Drysdale is only 23 years old, and York is only 24. They are both young and developing players who will continue to get better. Now I know defensemen aren’t as flashy as a top line goal scoring wing, but they are incredibly important building pieces for a team that needed to completely restructure after a decade plus of failure.
When looking at other defensemen the Flyers have either developed or gave up on in the recent years, we see patience is a virtue when it comes to NHL caliber defensemen. The first that comes to mind is Shayne Gostisbehere. Gostisbehere exploded onto the NHL scene his rookie year, finishing second in Calder voting while putting up 46 points in 64 games played. Not bad for a defenseman. Gostisbehere then continued to produce the following seasons putting up 39, 65, and 37 points respectively. While his point production fluctuated, his underlying stats did not.
Okay, so yes I will be using some advanced analytics in this piece. I know that some people don’t like them but they do a solid job of confirming what the eye test tells you, and unfortunately the analytics do confirm that Gostisbehere had rough 2019-2021 seasons. He was a healthy scratch a lot those years and was then traded in a salary dump with multiple draft picks to the Coyotes. The following seasons Gostisbehere had returned to level, becoming a very, very good, offensive-minded second-pairing defenseman. That two year window where many fans gave up on Gostisbehere was unfortunate, and the Flyers themselves gave up on him too only for him to now become a valuable piece to a championship-caliber team in Carolina.
The Flyers did the opposite with Travis Sanheim. Sanheim was seen as this guy within the fanbase who would never be more than that – just a guy. For years fans were wondering what would happen with Sanheim, as many wanted him traded. Many fans didn’t want the Flyers to even extend him after his RFA bridge deal was up, but Fletcher locked him up long term, giving Sanheim an eight-year deal worth $6.25M a year. The advanced analytics always loved Sanheim, but many fans thought they didn’t add up to his play on the ice.
Sanheim was what I would call “awkward” on the ice. Most of the time when he did something it wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done. Many in the fanbase (myself included) lost their minds at this extension. It seemed like they just overpaid and gave insane term to a player that would at best be the fourth defenseman on a Cup contender if the Flyers ever got back there.
Well, how silly we were! Sanheim kept getting better and better slowly until he just sort of crept up into top 20 defenseman talks this past year. Sanheim got the call for Team Canada last season at 4 Nations and looked pretty good out there. He looked like he belonged. Just like Gostisbehere, it took Sanheim until he was about 27/28 years old to finally fully reach his full potential.
To put this in perspective, Sanheim and Gostisbehere were 21 and 22, respectively, in their rookie seasons. Neither of them fully developed until at least 28 years old. They both are playing very good hockey right now, proving once again that defensemen take longer to develop, and to not judge a young defenseman super early in their careers.
Now on to Drysdale and York. The season is young so obviously these are small sample numbers, but man they’re playing REALLY good hockey. MoneyPuck.com is an awesome website if you’re interested at more of these niche stats, but they’re great for evaluating defensemen and goalies more than just points and save percentage.
When looking at this season we’ll start with Drysdale, because he has some eye popping stats. Currently, Drysdale is one of the best defensemen not just on the Flyers, but in the entire NHL. Drysdale has ZERO defensive zone giveaways this season so far, which is impressive for a player who has been generating a lot of the breakouts on his pair. He is also in second, behind Shayne Gostisbehere funnily enough, in Expected Goals% at 67.2%. This tracks the percent of all expected goals the player’s team gets while the player is on the ice compared to the other team. Basically how well are you doing everything on the ice without worrying about the puck luck. Diving deeper into it, Drysdale’s xG% comes more from his shutdown play in the defensive end than putting up points and generating offense in the offensive end (even though he is doing that too). The Flyers are shutting down opposing teams while Drysdale is on the ice, and generating much more offense. Drysdale was originally seen as a power play quarterback who would eventually be putting up 80-point seasons when he first arrived in the league. He probably won’t be that anymore, but pivoting to more of a Devon Toews-type player instead of a Cale Makar-type isn’t a bad thing at all.
When looking at York, his numbers are a bit more wonky since he started the season hurt, so his sample size is even smaller. He, however, is right up there with Drysdale. York is putting up points quickly since coming back. He has four assists in six games played so far, and is not only generating offense, but he has become a stable defensively abled partner with Travis Sanheim. As good as Drysdale has been in this young season in his own zone, York is surprisingly right there with him. York currently has an Expected Goals% of 61.2% which is good for top 20 in the league so far, with most of his production coming from shutting down the opposing team.
No, the Flyers do not have Cole Caufield, nor do they have Cutter Gauthier, but when you have players all up and down your team’s wing that can contribute at a high level already, having young defensemen who are starting to mold into who they’ll be in the NHL is a great thing. We cannot have what happened with Gostisbehere happen to either Drysdale or York. Again, they are 23 and 24 years old, respectively. Gostisbehere was traded away when he was 28 years old. Sanheim signed his eight-year extension when he was 27 years old. Drysdale and York are years away from being that age.
As you can see, the underlying numbers show that both of their trajectories are already rising (even with such a low sample size this season, it takes into account last season as well).
Be patient with both Jamie Drysdale and Cam York, they are good hockey players that could develop into cornerstone pieces of this franchise for a long time.
