Flyers’ Travis Sanheim, Justin Braun Among NHL’s Best Defensive Pairs

The Philadelphia Flyers’ second pairing has been among the league’s best defensive combinations in several statistical categories since being placed together.

When it comes to the Philadelphia Flyers blue-line, a lot of the focus has been geared towards how well Ivan Provorov and Matt Niskanen have played and Shayne Gostisbehere’s underwhelming performance through the first quarter of the season, and rightfully so. As I wrote about in this article, Provy’s having quite the bounce-back year following a disappointing 2018-19 and has struck a great deal of chemistry alongside ol’ Steady Eddie Niskanen on the top-pair.

Ghost, on the other hand, has struggled mightily in both the offensive and defensive zones through most of the year while finding himself in the press box for two straight games towards the end of November. Philippe Myers also put himself in the spotlight with a hot start after getting called up from the AHL but has been a little inconsistent with his play since. Though all of those stories definitely deserve attention as the year goes on, something that’s gone relatively unnoticed is how well Travis Sanheim and Justin Braun have looked since being put together on the Flyers second-pair.

The two blueliners have posted some of the best underlying numbers among all defensive pairings in the league. According to Natural Stat Trick, Sanheim and Braun rank fourth in Corsi (59.04), eighth in Fenwick (56.36) and total Scoring Chances (57.99), tenth in High Danger Scoring Chances (59.40), and 12th in Expected Goals (57.30) out of every pair in the NHL that has seen at least 150 minutes of Time on Ice at 5-on-5 with Score and Venue Adjusted. They possess one of the lowest PDO’s with a sum of 0.943, too, which means they’ve posted those high of numbers while being relatively unlucky in a shooting and save percentage sort of sense and might even be better than they appear.

Individually, both Braun and Sanheim have stacked up well against elite-level competition, as Braun has a 59.90 CF% and a 59.00 Dangerous Fenwick For percentage (DFF%), which leads all Flyers defensemen who’ve played in more than one game, while Sanheim has a 51.30 CF% and a 51.40 DFF%, per Puck IQ. Their sample sizes are still a bit small at the moment, especially when opposing elite talent, but they’ve been very effective in out-producing the opposition in shots and chances in all cases. You have to commend the moves General Manager Chuck Fletcher made over the offseason by bringing both Niskanen and Braun in, as they’ve made a positive impact on Sanheim and Provorov this year so far.

Braun and Sanheim’s excellent play, along with Provorov and Niskanen’s, has made for one of the Flyers’ most reliable Top-4 groups in recent years. Whether the four will continue to perform well remains to be seen, as there’s still plenty of games to go, but for now, let’s just enjoy this moment because it’s been some time since the Flyers have had a (mostly) good blue-line.