Travis Sanheim might be the most boring key Philadelphia Flyers player we have had in a while. I mean, like does he do anything remarkably well? Not really. But would it hurt the team for him to not be on the ice? That’s, well, to be determined.
What Sanheim was supposed to do this season is be that top blueliner on a bad team that would eventually be an anchor for the good times. Someone that can be relied upon to play whenever they are needed and would therefore be useful to have around.
The 27-year-old defenseman gave us something that was not that and it was either his own fault for not living up to expectations or the change of head coach to John Tortorella proved to not mesh with what he wants to do and how he wants to play.
For the basic stats, it was a typical season from what we have come to known from Sanheim. He doesn’t get injured often, doesn’t provide much offense, won’t go in the penalty box that much, and plays over 20 minutes. His average time-on-ice actually decreased compared to last season and by a substantial two and a half minutes.
There’s nothing really else to say about this line because Sanheim will never be that defenseman where the points matter.
For the first time in his career, Sanheim had disappointing on-ice numbers during 5-on-5 action. For the majority of the time, the other team was better than the Flyers when Sanheim was on the ice and had the majority of the scoring chances.
This is a guy that is supposed to be known and quantified as someone that can quietly control the play from the back and will shut an opponent down as the forwards do the offensive work, but neither happened for Sanheim this year.
I won’t bore you with the graphs that take up your whole screen, but just trust me that they are so bad. In almost every aspect of the game – 5-on-5 offense, 5-on-5 defense, power play, penalty kill, etc. – the Flyers were better when Sanheim was off the ice compared to when he was on it. The one key area was the penalty kill, where Sanheim was a solid suppressor of scoring chances compared to when the other Flyers attempted to play defense down a player.
It honestly shocked me to see just how terrible the Flyers were when Sanheim was on the ice. He has this reputation of someone that is valued when you see how he can do the little things and help his team overall, not by doing one particular skill, but he failed at that this season. The Flyers’ offense was atrocious when he was on the ice, and the defense went from being above league-average, to further below and letting forwards pop shots off right in front of whichever netminder was in the Philadelphia net.
No one should really care how many shots Sanheim got off per hour. It’s not really his job and if he’s doing it too often, then you have a much bigger problem.
Sanheim was just not what he was supposed to be this season.
Three Questions
Did they live up to expectations?
Plainly, no. Not at all. We can’t really explain it but this was supposed to be a fresh start for the defenseman. A new head coach that likes defense more than offense should be music to Sanheim’s ears, but it turned out that other players like Rasmus Ristolainen benefitted more from Tortorella’s structure. It says a lot when a dude like Tony DeAngelo – who was a healthy scratch to finish the season and was painfully terrible defensively – ended up averaging almost two more minutes per game than Sanheim.
We all expected for Sanheim to take this jump and be the top blueliner on a team that could be without Ivan Provorov in the future, but right now, it’s looking bleak. The dude just signed his eight-year extension that making him handsomely paid with a $6.25-million cap hit. Now, that contract might end up looking pretty damn bad if he doesn’t improve.
What can we expect from next season?
Maybe just a slight improvement? His contract and situation makes him unmoveable, so he will be in Philadelphia. As mentioned, Provorov might not be, as well as DeAngelo and other blueliners who could be on their way out. So it might really be his defensive group to lead with the likes of Cam York eyeing up his spot.
Honestly, we’re just expecting him to be better. That’s it.
How do we grade their 2022-23 season?
It was a disappointment overall and since Sanheim is not the type of player where you can take the offensive skill with the bad defense, he is getting a bad grade. Sanehim did a crap job at what he is supposed to do and didn’t get any better at what he isn’t known to do.
Grade: C-
