Philadelphia Flyers: Shayne Gostisbehere trending in wrong direction

Things haven’t been going well for Shayne Gostisbehere the last few seasons. It didn’t get any better this year.

Shayne Gostisbehere was drafted by the Flyers eight years ago. It’s been four years since he came into the league. And he took the NHL by storm that season.

Its been a long time since we’ve seen that from Gostisbehere. He has been trending in the wrong direction and has found his name in trade rumors for at least the last two seasons.

It’s fair to say that injuries have played a role. He only played 42 games this year after back to back 78-game campaigns. He had arthroscopic surgery on his knee to clean up a few things and came back too soon. He played some rehab games for the Phantoms before coming back.

But he hasn’t looked like himself for a while now. He appeared in 40 of the team’s first 43 games before he was sidelined. Since then, Gostisbehere only player in two of the team’s final 26 games before the league pause. Overall, he posted just five goals and seven assists.

Those came a year after he had nine goals and 28 assists in 78 games played. His best season was his sophomore campaign where he had 65 points in 78 games. Those two seasons were the most games he had played in while in a Flyers uniform.

Gostisbehere would’ve had the chance to jump back into the lineup full time. Philippe Myers had a fractured knee cap and would be out for four weeks. He did play in the team’s final game and was set to see his first long stretch of play since the injury.

The underlying numbers weren’t back. He was third among Flyers defensemen with a 52.01 CF%. The team did drive play well when he was on the ice, evidenced by his 51.78 FF%. As for goal scoring, the team was giving up more with Gostisbehere on the ice. That’s painted in his 47.73 GF% and his 46.96 xGF%.

With three seasons left on a contract that pays him $4.5M annually, it’s tough to paint him as a part of the future. But the Flyers shouldn’t give up and sell him for whatever they can get, though. However, if play is to resume this year, Myers is healthy and will jump back into the lineup.

That may end up pushing Gostisbehere back out of the lineup. So the team may have to see how he does next season and go from there. If he continues to trend downward as he has, they unfortunately might have to sell low on him.