Philadelphia Flyers Remain or Remove: Travis Sanheim

The 23-year-old defenseman had a great 2018-19 campaign with the Philadelphia Flyer and should play a significant role for the team going forward.

Travis Sanheim was arguably one of the most consistent defensemen for the Philadelphia Flyers this past season. He started the year performing admirably on the third defensive pair with Radko Gudas and eventually earned a promotion to the top-pair shortly before Dave Hakstol’s departure from the head coaching position.

The 2014 First Round pick finished out the season with 35 points (9 Goals, 26 Assists) in 82 games, which sat seventh on the team and second among Flyers defensemen. This was a 25 point improvement on his rookie year with a much higher point-per-game production as well. He looked solid in his brief stints on the power-play, too, and should replace Ivan Provorov on the second unit in the future given his slightly better offensive skillset.

Sanheim also ranked Top-10 in Corsi-For, Fenwick-For, Shots-For, and High Danger Goals-For percentages while placing Top-5 in total Goals-For, Scoring Chances-For, and High Danger Scoring Chances-For percentages among Flyers skaters who have played at least 500 minutes of Time on Ice at even-strength, according to Natural Stat Trick. Even in a year where Philadelphia was pretty average in creating chances in any area of the ice, Sanheim was still able to excel at it.

While he did shave his fair share of lapses in the defensive zone, Sanheim did a stable job in suppressing opposing shots in dangerous areas. According to HockeyViz.com, the Manitoba native kept most of the shots he faced to the out of the slot and more to the outer part of the circles. This poses as less of a threat to the goaltender, showing that Sanheim can be an effective two-way d-man for Philadelphia.

I don’t think I have to explain myself here when I say that Sanheim should definitely remain with the Flyers. He gives the roster another Top-4 defenseman with true two-way upside, which will bode well for their depth on the blue-line for the immediate future.

Sanheim will serve as another Restricted Free Agent that General Manager Chuck Fletcher has to get a deal done with this offseason. He won the Pelle Lindbergh Memorial Trophy for a good reason which gives Fletcher no reason to not keep him in an Orange and Black uniform for years to come.