The Philadelphia Flyers announced earlier Friday that they have loaned defenseman Emil Andrae back to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in a move that has left most of the fanbase scratching their heads.
The young Swedish defenseman had been a mainstay in the lineup since his recall and was a driving force into many of their victories, especially during the month of November that ended with the Flyers going 8-2-2.
Head coach John Tortorella applauded Andrae for a variety of reasons during his stint with the big club, which made his recent 3-game hiatus in the press box puzzling. Generally Tortorella might bench a player for a game to get someone else in the lineup so they won’t rust, but the 3-game bender stretched beyond that.
Egor Zamula came back in the lineup in his stead and was exposed more times than not, especially compared to when Andrae was in the lineup.
In 20 games this season, Andrae tallied a goal and 4 assists, was a +3, blocked 28 shots and delivered 22 hits, all while averaging 19:18 TOI. He was called up after Cam York was placed on IR and during that 10-game stretch, Andrae proved his mettle.
He didn’t immediately take over York’s spot on the top pair with Travis Sanheim, that spot was given to Rasmus Ristolainen. However, Andrae rose to the top in short order and stabilized a shoddy back-end with intangibles that most of his counterparts didn’t possess.
Even upon York’s return to the lineup, Andrae’s ATOI jumped two minutes from 18 to 20 minutes per game and he never saw less than the 18:17 he played during an overtime loss against Boston. There were very few errors and mistakes in his game that would have prompted a benching from his head coach.
Andrae returned to the lineup last night in lieu of York and despite the team going down 7-3, Andrae held an even rating in 16:45 TOI compared to Sanheim who finished the game as a minus-4 and Jamie Drysdale as a minus-3.
You dive further into the analytics and Andrae leads the team in On-Ice Shot Attempt% (Corsi) at 56%, On-Ice Unblocked Shot Attempt% (Fenwick) at 57%, On-Ice Goals% at 58.6%, On-Ice Expected Goals% at 59.7%, Relative Expected Goals% at 14.6%, On-Ice Score Adjusted Expected Goals% at 59.9%, On-Ice shot Attempts per 60 at 60.91, and On-Ice High Danger Shot Attempts For Per 60 at 4.2, among so many other categories.
Some of those categories he led by a wide margin including On-Ice Goals% with Drysdale coming in at second with an 8% difference.
Every metric, including the eye test, would show you that Andrae deserves an every day spot on the Flyers. His combination of speed, skill, and grit is something the Flyers lack and have lacked for quite some time. While he might play similarly in style to York and Drysdale, there’s a little bit more “umph” in his game that his counterparts either don’t have or have been lacking this season.
The NHL’s roster freeze took into effect on Thursday night at 11:59 PM (EST), which allowed the Flyers to send him down to the minors. According to Jordan Hall of NBC Sports Philadelphia, one source said that a reason as to why he was demoted was because they had two extra defenseman and only 12 forwards.
Teams are allowed to make recalls during the roster freeze that will be lifted next Saturday. The Flyers play twice more until the 27th of December before they embark on their western road trip that starts with a back-to-back on the 28th and 29th against Anaheim and Los Angeles.
Another key reason was that Andrae is waiver exempt, which made the decisions a little easier for the Flyers and gave them some more flexibility. Conversely, Zamula would have had to pass through waivers to be reassigned to the minors but as Hall points out, they still don’t want to give up on the Russian defenseman – at least not yet.
There’s a chance that Andrae could be recalled for the road trip that spans 4 games in 6 days out west but then they travel to Toronto right after for a date with the Maple Leafs, which extends the trip to 5 games in 9 days.
The aforementioned extra defenseman is none other than Erik Johnson who hasn’t played since the 20th of November and it seems unlikely he makes his way back anytime soon. York will more than likely return to the lineup tomorrow after serving as a healthy scratch last night, meaning the defense should remain the same elsewhere.
We’ll see how the Flyers fare before the Christmas break with games against Columbus and Pittsburgh but this is certainly a move that has enraged a large faction of the fanbase. The head-scratching decisions continue but it will be interesting to see if Andrae is recalled at any point, especially ahead of their lengthy road trip.
Advanced stats listed are courtesy of Moneypuck.com
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