This past off-season probably had the most hype in recent memory and for good reason. After yet another underperforming season and quiet summer, the Philadelphia Flyers made some big splashes in an attempt to re-tool their roster. The biggest splash was none other than former Nashville Predators defenseman Ryan Ellis.
In what looked like a rebuilding season for the Predators, with the trade of Viktor Arvidsson to the Los Angeles Kings for picks, Pekka Rinne retiring, exposing big money contracts like Matt Duchene and Ryan Johansen to the Seattle Kraken, and essentially letting the league know that everyone outside of Roman Josi was available, the Flyers jumped on their next best defenseman with the idea that he would patrol the top unit with Ivan Provorov for years to come.
Fast forward to January and the Nashville Predators are currently the second seed in the Western Conference with a 24-12-3 record, while the Flyers sit 11th in the Eastern Conference with a paltry 13-17-7 record.
The trade itself was rather surprising because even though there was a fire sale going on in Nashville, not many people thought or heard of Ryan Ellis’ name in the rumour-verse. All the Flyers had to give up for their supposed-stud defenseman was the ever-frustrated Nolan Patrick and the sophomore-slump-enduring Phil Myers. No picks, no future assets, and it turned out to be a three-team trade with the Vegas Golden Knights as the Predators flipped Patrick for Cody Glass.
It seemed like the Flyers made out like gangbusters because they moved 2 players who seemingly had no future in Philadelphia, at least under Alain Vigneault’s coaching regime, and they found their much needed top pair defenseman, which was also necessary to get Provorov’s game back on track. The Flyers had made their moves in the early stages of the off-season and were happy to move forward with Ellis, Provorov, Rasmus Ristolainen, Travis Sanheim, Justin Braun, and Keith Yandle as the 6 defensemen; a much more improved corps from the previous season.
Ellis made a solid impact during the pre-season and played well enough to get everyone excited for the season and the season opener. In the very small sample size of a few pre-season games and 4 regular season games, the Ellis-Provorov pairing looked fantastic and the Flyers as a whole looked so much better.
Understandably so, Ryan Ellis is exactly the type of defenseman the Flyers desperately needed. He’s a floor general, can play as much as 22-25 minutes a game, plays both power play and penalty killing situations, and does the one thing that most Flyers defensemen can’t do and that’s getting the puck out of the zone with constant ease. In his first 3 games before being sidelined with an injury, he recorded 1 goal and 4 points. He came back too quickly for a spot-start against the Dallas Stars and recorded an assist in the loss. In the small sample size of 4 games, the Flyers hold a 2-1-1 record.
Ellis missing time doesn’t just hurt them because they’re missing one of their 6 starters, the trickle down effect of his absence is seen in the pairings and rotation. With Ellis in the lineup, they comfortably played Ristolainen with Sanheim to complete the top four and then had a veteran pairing of Braun-Yandle to complete the set. With Ellis sidelined, the Flyers brought Braun to the top pairing to reunite with Provorov and then played the 7th defenseman with Yandle.
If it was a minor setback of 5 games then the makeshift pairings could suffice but the mysterious injury that the Flyers were hush-hush about went from day-to-day, to week-to-week, to out indefinitely. Braun overstayed his welcome on the top pairing, the Ristolainen-Sanheim pairing became the better of the 3 pairs, and Yandle-Seeler/Connauton brought back terrible memories of pairings of yesteryear like Brandon Manning-Radko Gudas.
In essence, Ellis’ absence exposed Provorov’s need for an exceptional partner, Yandle’s offensive capabilities no longer wash away his putrid defensive mistakes, and Braun is good on the top pairing for a few weeks until he gets exposed with no back-up plan in sight.
The words “injury prone” get thrown around a lot when talking about Ryan Ellis this year, and I think that comes more out of frustration than anything else with how this season has transpired. Injury prone and having an injury history are different because Ellis has injured different areas of his body rather than a consistent one. His three most recent long term injuries included: a knee surgery during the off-season of 2017 where he missed the first 38 games of the 2017-18 season, a concussion suffered during the Winter Classic in 2020 where he ended up missing 20 games, and then last year he missed 21 games from a broken knuckle.
From 2013-14 to 2018-19, Ellis appeared in 71+ games 4 times and after his off-season knee surgery in the summer of 2017 he appeared in the next 184 games; regular season and playoffs included. Trying to play through the injury during and after the pre-season was the fatal blow to Ellis and the Flyers and something that should be rectified with further rehab.
His current injury doesn’t really have much to do with his previous lengthy absences but the most concerning aspect of this year’s injury is that no one is exactly certain as to what his ailment is. We’ve detected and discovered that it has something to do with his groin and/or hip and that it occurred somewhere near the end of the pre-season.
The Flyers and their coaching staff are well aware of his absence:
“I know Ryan’s frustrated. He’s a player that we really miss. He is a very, very strong player on both sides of the puck. When you don’t have a guy like that in your lineup, you feel it defensively and you also see it in the execution part of our game. The game that we want to play, we want to play a fast game, we want to get on the attack, we want to get to the offensive zone. He’s a guy that helps you do those things.” said interim head coach Mike Yeo.
“It’s tough not having him and I know it’s been a real frustrating time for him. It’s just not making a lot of progress right now, so hopefully something changes there very soon.”
Chuck Fletcher didn’t mince on his words either:
“One player shouldn’t be enough to sink our team, but Ryan Ellis is an elite puck mover, he’s elite in transition, he would allow us to put everybody in the right chair.”
“Making progress. It’s still week to week, doing better. He’s been skating a little bit, so that’s progress. He’s feeling better. Once we come out of the break, we’re hopeful that he’ll be closer to playing, but it’s still a week-to-week situation.”
It might be a stretch but his absence from the lineup is reminiscent to the “Peter Forsberg effect” from the Flyers of 2005-06 and 2006-07. The team record and gameplay was miles better with the insertion of Forsberg, but when he was sidelined with his foot injuries, the team lost almost every game and looked completely lost and rudderless; which sounds like the present Flyers and Ryan Ellis. Even Fletcher mentions how one player shouldn’t affect the team composition that much but we’ve seen it happen before, not just with Peter Forsberg.
The Flyers have gone 5-13-6 in their last 24 games after a good stretch to start the season. This season more or less seems like a wash with the trade deadline still 2 months away. Anything can happen and the Flyers could miraculously go on a red-hot playoff run, but nothing about the 2021-22 Flyers would give you that indication.
With that in mind and Ryan Ellis locked up for another 5 years, it’s in the Flyers’ best interest to shut his season down if he still isn’t close to returning by February. He rushed back the first time and re-injured himself soon after, a common theme this season with several veterans like Derick Brassard and Kevin Hayes.
It was a move that had Flyers fans excited and for good measure as well. He was exactly what was missing from the lineup and had Kimmo Timonen vibes, and we all know how well that move transpired years ago. With his timetable still up in the air and the Flyers losing games with relative ease, it’s time to focus on the future with players like Cam York and Yegor Zamula.
As of this moment, Ryan Ellis is a Flyer until the end of the 2026-27 season and his future health should be the main priority. He’s an amazing defenseman, has all the tools you’re looking for, he can play in all situations, and it’s rather disappointing that we haven’t been able to see that in full display this year, but let’s keep that in mind for the future seasons to come.
