Philadelphia Flyers: Extreme Makeover, Defense Edition
By Marc Naples
Ron Hextall’s in-progress makeover of the Philadelphia Flyers’ defense is finding unpredictable and unlikely solutions on the road to a total rebuild
Braydon Coburn and Kimmo Timonen. Andrew MacDonald and Luke Schenn. Mark Streit and Nicklas Grossmann, with Erik Gustafsson in reserve. That was the Philadelphia Flyers defense in the spring of 2014, which Ron Hextall then inherited when he took over the job as general manager after the season ended.
Everyone around the NHL would’ve told you this defense was a major issue for the Flyers. Timonen and Streit were old, and the rest of the group wasn’t much for puck carrying. The Flyers identified it as such a critical weakness that they gave Andrew MacDonald a $25 million contract to lock him up.
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At the time, there was no clear path as to how the Philadelphia Flyers could decisively solve the issue. They had a few promising prospects in Shayne Gostisbehere, Robert Hagg and Samuel Morin, but none of them were close to joining the NHL lineup. It also was doubtful if any of those 3 projected as top-pair NHL players.
The situation became even more dire in the offseason with news of Timonen’s career-threatening injury. The Flyers quickly addressed the issue by signing Michael Del Zotto off the NHL scrap heap to a bargain contract. Del Zotto was still only 24, but his NHL career was teetering. It seemed extremely optimistic that Del Zotto could come anywhere near filling Timonen’s role in the Flyers already maligned defense corps.
Fast forward two years and Hextall has almost completely turned over the defense. Of the 7 that featured in the spring of 2014, only Streit remains. Hextall didn’t make all the changes overnight, but in time he traded away Coburn, Timonen, Grossmann and Schenn, and let Gustafsson walk away. In their place, Hextall has gotten the most out of practically forgotten NHL players.
In addition to the aforementioned Del Zotto, Hextall signed Nick Schultz for $1.25 million and received Radko Gudas as essentially a throw-in in the Braydon Coburn trade. These 3 players make up 75% of the Flyers’ current top-4 defensemen, but it is Gudas and Del Zotto working the wonders for the Flyers this season.
Rookie coach Dave Hakstol tried nearly every possible combination of Flyers defensemen in the first two months of the season. Few of those combinations showed immediate promise, but over time the pair of Del Zotto and Gudas have separated themselves as the cream of the crop.
Del Zotto and Gudas have established themselves as the Flyers’ clear number one pair. They play the most minutes against the toughest competition. Even better, these hard minutes aren’t slowing them down, as they have the best Corsi/possession statistics of all Flyers defensemen. This is borderline miraculous for a player no NHL team would touch in the summer of 2014, and another earning less than $1 million dollars per season who could be thrown into a deadline trade with almost no recognition.
With the trade of Luke Schenn last week, the Philadelphia Flyers have finally found a little bit of stability in their defense. Shayne Gostisbehere is out with an apparent short term injury, and once he returns the Flyers should enjoy some consistency in the back for the first time under Dave Hakstol. Stability in the back will be nice for the rest of this season, but this is merely an intermediate phase for Hextall’s extreme makeover.
Hextall’s on-the-fly rehab of NHL cast-offs is plugging the holes in the Flyers defense, but the real reinforcements have yet to arrive. While all of the maneuvers discussed above were taking place, the Flyers added two blue-chip prospects in Travis Sanheim and Ivan Provorov from the first round of the NHL draft in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Provorov in particular is coming off a spectacular performance in the World Junior Championships last week, and scouts can’t say enough about him.
It would not be surprising at all to see a Philadelphia Flyers defense corps next year feature 4 players under 26 in their top-6; Del Zotto, Gudas, Provorov, and Gostisbehere. Furthermore, 20-year old Travis Sanheim and 21-year old Samuel Morin would be a phone call away from a call-up. Older players like Mark Streit, Nick Schultz and Andrew MacDonald will be pushed to the fringes, or put aside entirely if feasible. It would be only then that Hextall’s defense project is complete.
At that point it will have been 2+ years into Hextall’s tenure. He wasn’t weaving miracles, but he was patiently unloading deadweight, making opportunistic acquisitions, and accruing top prospects. That’s just fine, because it usually takes about 2 years before a new house feels like a home.