What could a healthy Ryan Ellis mean for the Flyers?

In Ellis’ four games this season, he was almost exclusively paired with Provorov. The two skated 54:40 of even strength ice time together. Ellis also skated with Keith Yandle (9:55), Travis Sanheim (2:02), Justin Braun (0:49), and Nick Seeler (0:42). The latter four, obviously, aren’t a big enough sample size and won’t be where Ellis ends up anyway. Not that it bares mentioning but Braun was traded before the deadline and Yandle is likely retiring, though he likely wasn’t coming back anyway.

For the sake of this, we can only look at Ellis’ minutes spent with Provorov. It is still hard to gauge what these two can become based on a sample size that is still likely too small. But it gives us a starting point on what a pairing with those two would look like.

According to Natural Stat Trick, the two had a 47.25 CF% and a 45.16 FF%. Despite getting slightly outplayed and outchanced, they out scored their opponents 2-0 while on the ice together. Both of those goals came in the opening game of the season against the Vancouver Canucks. The first goal, scored by Joel Farabee, was set up by both Provorov and Ellis.

Of course, their perfect GF and SV% isn’t sustainable and can’t be looked at too closely in this instance. They were only on the ice for 26 shots against so, once again, the sample size is much too small to draw a rational conclusion from.

To give us a good idea of what Ellis may look like in a top pair role, we can look at his last season with the Predators. Now, we have to preface with one thing. Ellis saw a majority of his ice time with Roman Josi. The Flyers, at the moment, don’t have a defenseman on the same level as Josi. But these stats can simply show us how he faired in that kind of role.

The two had a 56.61 CF% and drove play 55.99% of the time. While on the ice together, the team outshot opponents 214-174. They were slightly out scored 12-16, accounted in their 42.86 GF%. But their other numbers show a pairing that was largely working well together. One can say that Josi helped elevate his play, but it can also be said that Ellis helped elevate Provorov as well.

Now back to the Flyers and adding in the even strength minutes with other players, Ellis broke close to even with a 50.43 CF%. He was driving play 48.10% percent of the time and he had an xGF% of 40.60. And when you look at the stat sheet in terms of points, he was putting together a good pace.

"“I mean, my stats speak for themselves. Four games, five points.” Ellis joked when asked about how to evaluate his game.”"

Okay so that isn’t a sustainable pace either. But it can show that Ellis was acclimating well to a new team and a new system. Alain Vigneault was the coach at the time so we don’t know what things may look like in a Mike Yeo coached system. Though, we likely won’t find out as he’s not expected to be the head coach again next season.

The Flyers will almost certainly have some changes on the backend. But they likely don’t need to go the free agent route for that, at least not for a star. Cam York will get a strong opportunity to make the team out of camp. Ronnie Attard and Egor Zamula will also get chances, though they may start in the AHL to further develop.

The team could also go a similar route to what they did this season and bring in a cheap veteran for depth purposes. Kevin Connauton looked like he was in for a bigger role towards the latter part of the season before his injury. The team could bring him back on a cheap deal to sure things up.

In the end, we won’t truly know what the Flyers will look like with a fully healthy Ellis until next season. The stats suggest that Ellis himself can fit in well with the team and that a pairing with Provorov was working out. Now we just have to hope that the off-season rehab and training goes well for Ellis.

Philadelphia does not want to try and have to piece together their defense once again. They have bigger things to worry about.