The long and winding road that is Travis Sanheim has proven that patience is a virtue. Despite a trade that almost went down last offseason, Sanheim has rebounded in a big way and has played like the #1 defenseman the Philadelphia Flyers have needed for well over a decade.
Samheim was one of the first members of what was supposed to be a vaunted and rebuilt back-end. It started when Paul Holmgren drafted Samuel Morin in the first round of the 2013 NHL Entry Draft and was followed into Ron Hextall’s first draft when he selected Sanheim 17th overall – in Philadelphia, no less.
It was a surprising pick at the time because Sanheim didn’t have the numbers to back up a first round selection with 29 points in his draft season. Many had tabbed a player like Tony DeAngelo to be a better positional pick if the Flyers were seeking a defenseman, and many had Sanheim ranked in the second round at the earliest.
Nevertheless, Hextall went with his hunch – as he usually did – and selected the 6’4” native of Elkhorn, Manitoba to jumpstart his drafting tenure. Sanheim proved his first round selection wasn’t so egregious after posting 65 points in 67 games the following year with the Calgary Hitmen before a 68-point 2015-16 season in just 52 games.
He made the jump to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms at the end of his WHL season in 2015-16 before playing a full campaign in 2016-17 where he tallied 37 points in his rookie year. He split time between the Phantoms and the Flyers in 2017-18 before making the final leap in 2018-19 with a full 82-game slate.
It essentially became a roller-coaster ride from 2017-18 to 2023-24 between not-so-great seasons and great seasons. Sanheim recorded what was a career-high 9 goals and 35 points in 2018-19 and never reached those heights again until 2023-24 when he tallied 10 goals and 44 points. He came close a few times but lacked the overall consistency that was needed for a top-4 defenseman.
He struggled with the rest of his teammates under Alain Vigneault before turning the ship around midseason with Mike Yeo taking over as the interim in 2021-22. When the Flyers brought in John Tortorella, the hope was that he would be able to stabilize Sanheim and allow him to improve from his second half in 2021-22.
That was not the case and in fact, Tortorella was on the record several times, calling him out about his lack of aggression and overall game play. He suited up in 81 games in 2022-23, was scratched when the Flyers visited the Calgary Flames where he had family and friends in the building, and put up a not-so-slender 23 points.
The first year under Tortorella was essentially a learning curve for a lot of Flyers, including Sanheim. With Ivan Provorov no longer in the mix, Sanheim became the top-pair defenseman that everyone had waited for. It might’ve taken 7 or 8 years, but Sanheim turned in a fantastic 2023-24 season and he has brought that into the 2024-25 campaign to date.
Not only did he accumulate career-highs across the board in goals (10), assists (34), points (44), PIM (48), even-strength goals (9), shots (146), and ATOI (23:48), but there were pockets of the season where he was leading the league in minutes played and was going toe-to-toe with the best the NHL had to offer.
It was never sustainable but sometimes Tortorella was left with no other option but to play Sanheim – and Cam York – well above 25-26 minutes a night. To start the 2023-24 season, he averaged 26:01 in his first 25 games to go along with 15 assists and 17 points.
The next 36 games, his ATOI dropped to 21 minutes a game with more opportunities presented to Nick Seeler, Sean Walker, and Jamie Drysdale but he still managed to put up 19 points during that stretch.
Then when the injuries started to pile up and with Walker being dealt ahead of the trade deadline, Sanheim returned back to his workhorse ways with 24:18 ATOI to finish off the season. In those 20 contests, he saw more than 24 minutes eleven times and reached above 26 minutes five times. The Flyers collapsed at this stage of the season but even with all those goals against and playing so many minutes, he managed a somewhat decent -5 rating.
This season was more of the same as Sanheim averaged 22:47 TOI in the first 7 games with a full compliment of healthy defensemen. Then when York was placed on IR, the veteran’s ice-time spiked as he has averaged 26:37 over his last 9 games.
The first game without York, Sanheim played 27:49 against the Minnesota Wild. He’s only played less than 24 minutes twice, and has seen a gaudy 29:21 on average over his last 4 games, including back-to-back games where he’s played 30+.
His point totals were a little low from what we saw last year but after a three-point effort against Ottawa, he now has 4 goals and 5 assists to date while pacing his fellow defensemen in both those categories. His even rating is 5th-best on the team as well when you configure players who have played more than 9 games.
His 25:09 ATOI is tops amongst the team, with 2nd-most going to Travis Konecny at 21:13. Sanheim also obviously possesses the most for a defenseman with York trailing at 22:56, Jamie Drysdale at 20:35, and Rasmus Ristolainen at 20:18.
On the year, Sanheim also has 35 blocked shots and dished out 15 hits, recorded 18 takeaways to 16 giveaways, and he’s doing all of this without power play minutes. He has only seen 2.3 minutes on the man advantage this season and you have to wonder if that’s because of how relied upon he is at even-strength and while shorthanded.
He saw a career-high 124 minutes last year on the power play as well as 218.9 minutes shorthanded, but the Flyers have gone with Drysdale (45.5 minutes), Egor Zamula (20.7 minutes) and Emil Andrae (17.4 minutes) more often on the power play – and even York had almost as many minutes as Sanheim does in just 7 games – this year.
Sanheim’s 58 shorthanded minutes are are above anyone else on the club. Ristolainen has 48.1 minutes, York has 29.2 minutes, Seeler has 20.1 minutes (11 games), Erik Johnson has 20 minutes (11 games), and then Zamula has 5.9 minutes. Sanheim’s 5-on-5 minutes also tower over the rest but that’s expected with how much time he’s seen over the last few weeks.
In other words, Sanheim has become the player that everyone had hoped Provorov would have turned into. There was a lot of hope, potential, and talent in the Russian but he was never able to improve upon his career-year in 2019-20. Sanheim on the other hand has turned into a two-way workhorse who has the offensive capabilities of a 1D without power play minutes, and has earned a not-so-shabby 2 Barry Ashbee Trophies over his last 3 seasons as the team’s best defenseman.
The 30+ minutes a game he’s seen over the last 3 games is not likely sustainable and once York makes his return, those numbers should lower to something more palatable. However, in the meantime, expect more of the same from Sanheim as the Flyers continue to make inroads on musty and murky Eastern Conference Wild Card situation.
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