The Philadelphia Flyers’ offseason was always going to be defined by whether general manager Chuck Fletcher could find their much-needed top-pair defenseman.
Consider the offseason defined.
Just before the 3 p.m. trade freeze Saturday, the Flyers acquired 30-year old defenseman Ryan Ellis from the Nashville Predators in exchange for Philippe Myers and Nolan Patrick, who was later flipped by Nashville to Vegas for Cody Glass. Suddenly, Philadelphia’s most glaring roster need is no more. Ellis immediately slots into the Flyers’ top-pair alongside 24-year old Ivan Provorov, giving Provorov the long-term, high-end right-handed partner that he lacked in the wake of Matt Niskanen’s surprise retirement after the 2019-20 season.
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“The opportunity to add a player like Ryan was too good to pass up,” Fletcher noted a little over an hour after the trade was announced. “He’s what we need at this time.”
Is Ellis the right piece for the Flyers? Was the cost reasonable? What are the risks of the deal? And what comes next for the front office?
Ellis the player
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Ryan Ellis’ track record implies that he is a very, very good NHL defenseman.
Ellis is a plus skater. He can put up points. He can drive offense without sacrificing defense. He has a bomb of a slap shot. He can play well in all situations. He passes the analytics test with flying colors.
In other words, the Flyers aren’t passing off a good second-pair defenseman as an impact first-pair one. Ellis, in theory, is exactly what the Flyers wanted and needed.
As a 10-year veteran with 562 regular-season games and 74 playoff games to his credit, Ellis brings a veteran presence to Philadelphia. But that only goes so far if the player can’t provide tangible on-ice value. But that’s exactly what Ellis did in Nashville. Over the past five seasons, Ellis has averaged over 23 minutes, 30 seconds per game for the Predators, and over that span, he’s also paced for nearly 50 points per 82 games. Aside from his size — he’s just 5-foot-10 — he checks all of the boxes that traditionalists would want in a top-pair defenseman.
And don’t take that to mean that Ellis doesn’t grade out well by advanced metrics as well. He does. In fact, he’s something of an analytics darling.
Before the 2020-21 season — more on that later — Ellis could legitimately be called one of the best play-driving defensemen in hockey. Evolving-Hockey’s RAPM model, which attempts to isolate a player’s impact on both his team’s expected goal differential and shot attempt differential at even strength, consistently had graded Ellis as pushing the needle dramatically in the right direction. And their Goals Above Replacement model consistently has ranked him in the upper echelons of the NHL, to the point where it views him as having been one of the most valuable defensemen in all of hockey over the past decade.
That’s a lot of green.
How does he consistently push play in the right direction, year after year? Fletcher pointed out that Ellis’ ability to transition the puck from defense to offense is truly high-end.
“He is one of the best passers in the game on the blue line,” Fletcher said. “He’s great in transition.”
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Per Corey Sznajder’s manual tracking work, Fletcher has a point. From 2016-17 through 2019-20, Ellis checks in with a 39 percent possession exit rate (meaning that 39 percent of his attempts to exit the defensive zone not only succeed but come with possession of the puck), which easily clears the league average of 34 percent. For reference, Shayne Gostisbehere led the 2020-21 Flyers with a 37 percent rate — Ellis, in other words, immediately steps in as the defense’s best puck mover, an area that needed dramatic improvement in Fletcher’s eyes.
“We acquired one of the premier defensemen in the National Hockey League, and a player that we feel fits the needs of our team quite well in terms of his overall two-way game and ability to move the puck, which is an area I thought we struggled in a lot last year,” Fletcher said. “I think there was a lot of focus on the fact we didn’t defend as well. To me, we just defended too much. If we move the puck cleaner and more quickly out of our defensive zone, then we won’t have to defend as much.”
But don’t take Fletcher’s focus on Ellis’ puck-moving ability to mean that he’s a slouch on defense. In his 10 seasons, he’s graded out as a plus scoring-chance suppressor at even strength (per xG RAPM) eight times, and he’s done the same (per RelTM) on the penalty kill the past three seasons.
We’re talking about a complete defenseman here.
The cost
Of course, a player like that doesn’t come for free.
Philippe Myers’ upside remains extremely high. Defensemen who are 6-5 and can absolutely fly on the ice are rare breeds already; add the fact that Myers also possesses solid puck skills and is a right-handed shot, and it becomes abundantly clear just how high Myers’ theoretical value to a team can be.
That said, Myers struggled mightily in 2020-21. After a strong second half in 2019-20 and a stellar showing in the playoffs against the Montreal Canadiens, hopes were high that Myers could fill an even bigger role this past season — possibly even serving as the internal replacement for Matt Niskanen.
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Instead, Myers failed to rise to the challenge. His underlying five-on-five metrics actually weren’t terrible in the end, but much of that was due to some good games once the Flyers were long out of the playoff picture and basically just playing out the string. When the games mattered, Myers faltered, lacking confidence without the puck and purpose with it. By March, he was getting healthy scratched by coach Alain Vigneault; by April, he was playing so poorly that fans weren’t even angry when he watched a game from the press box. He simply hadn’t earned the right to play on a nightly basis.
It’s certainly possible that Myers quickly puts the 2020-21 season behind him and establishes himself as the bona fide top-four NHL defenseman he appeared to be rapidly developing into as recently as last summer. But it’s no guarantee. Myers has to be viewed more as a low-end second pair/high-end third-pair defenseman, and he’s already 24. Even with his immense physical tools and relative lack of experience at the NHL level — he’s appeared only in 115 regular-season games — it’s certainly possible that Myers doesn’t progress any further. Obviously, Nashville is betting that he will. But there’s a dramatic drop-off between Ellis and what Myers is now.
And then there’s Nolan Patrick.
It always made the most sense that if Patrick were to be moved this summer, it would be as the secondary piece in a larger deal, and that’s exactly how it played out. As with Myers, the risk with trading Patrick is that he ultimately realizes his immense potential elsewhere. After all, he’s still just 22 years old. And he has shown flashes of brilliance — Patrick played like a legitimately effective 2C during the second half of his rookie season and was more frustrating (due to the swings between highs and lows) than truly bad in his sophomore year. We are talking about the No. 2 pick in 2017 here.
But the risk with Patrick is high as well. Even before his 2020-21 season, Patrick struggled with consistency and on-ice assertiveness. But in his return from the migraine disorder that wiped out his 2019-20 season, Patrick was flat-out ineffective. Nine points in 52 games simply isn’t going to cut it for a scoring NHL center, particularly one who was receiving regular power-play time. Patrick’s two-way metrics were actually not terrible (51.44 percent expected goals share at five-on-five, +0.030 xG RAPM impact) in 2020-21, but his tendency toward passive play resulted in him being a complete no-show on the scoresheet.
Can Patrick return at the very least to his pre-migraine disorder form? Probably. A normal offseason this summer will surely help him, and perhaps his passivity was at least in part due to making it past the mental hurdles of returning from a major head issue. But Patrick turns 23 in September; time is running out for him to reach the levels projected for him when he was tearing up the WHL with the Brandon Wheat Kings.
Essentially, the Flyers traded away two talented players in their early 20s with enormous upsides but serious questions as to whether either will reach it.
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Breaking down the risks
The Ellis trade doesn’t come entirely without risks.
The most glaring one is age. Ellis is 30, and by the numbers, is well past what tends to be an NHL player’s prime. And while his $6.25 million cap hit is more than fair right now, Ellis is signed through the 2026-27 season, when he’ll be 36. It’s certainly plausible that as he ages, that steal of a cap hit could slowly turn into an albatross.
Second, it’s worth noting that Ellis did have a down season in 2020-21. For only the second time in his career, he graded out as a (slightly) negative impact player in terms of even-strength expected goal differential, and his point totals dipped back into the half-point-per-game range after being above 0.70 PPG in two of his previous three seasons. However, much of his drop-off can likely be attributed to a shattered knuckle that knocked him out of action for 20 games, and Fletcher expressed confidence about Ellis’ future.
“It’s a fair question. That’s a concern with everybody,” Fletcher acknowledged when asked why he believed Ellis will age well. “He’s 30 years old. We believe he has good hockey ahead of him. It’s tough to predict injuries, certainly he is a man that plays hard. There’s no reason to think that he can’t (age well). We like him a lot as a player.”
It may be tough to predict injuries. But Ellis has absolutely dealt with his fair share of them in recent years, which adds another concern. He missed 21 games last season, 20 in 2019-20 (concussion), and 38 in 2017-18 (knee surgery). Ellis may be very good when he plays, but there’s a risk that his style of play and his size — combined with the natural aging process — could lead to even more injuries, cutting down on the value he can provide the Flyers.
None of these concerns is a dealbreaker, of course. But they can’t be ignored entirely.
Why the trade makes sense for the Flyers
To be blunt, in the moment, this trade looks like a home run for the Flyers.
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Fletcher may have publicly challenged the assumption that he needed to add a top-pair quality defenseman this offseason, but let’s be honest: he pretty much did. The loss of Niskanen hit the Flyers’ blue-line corps extremely hard in 2020-21, both on and off the ice. Ivan Provorov desperately needed a new partner, and not merely a decent one. This past season, when taken in aggregate with Provorov’s “one great year, one meh year” career trend, provided further evidence that Provorov might not be destined to develop into a pairing-carrying No. 1 defenseman. And if he’s merely a very solid No. 2, the Flyers could not afford to bargain-hunt for his partner. They needed to get a defenseman capable of impact-level play.
Ellis fits the bill.
Suddenly, the Flyers’ defensive corps is starting to look a lot more logical. Provorov-Ellis will clearly be the top pairing, at least to start, and it looks like a good one. Assuming that Travis Sanheim is not moved this summer — and with Myers out the door, it’s probably safe to guess Sanheim stays — he’ll run the second pairing as the No. 3. There are remaining questions when it comes to the Philadelphia defense, namely the identity of Sanheim’s regular partner and how the third pair shakes out. But the presence of Ellis should allow for players like Sanheim and Justin Braun and even a looming prospect like Cam York to play in the right roles for their talents, which should benefit the group as a whole.
The price was also reasonable, and I’d argue a bit light. Swapping Myers for Ellis is a no-doubt-about-it roster upgrade, and the Flyers already showed they can be competitive without Patrick back in 2019-20. The fact that Fletcher was able to execute this deal without relinquishing any draft picks or prospects plays as an obvious win for Philadelphia.
Ellis’ cap hit also works in the Flyers’ favor. For a top-pair defenseman, Ellis’ $6.25 million cap charge is more than reasonable; in fact, it’s even lower than that of Provorov ($6.75 million). Dougie Hamilton, for example, would have cost significantly more (likely upwards of $8 million per year) if the Flyers had been able to convince him to come to Philadelphia. Seth Jones would have been cheaper ($5.4 million) next season, but the Flyers were not going to acquire him without assurances that he would ultimately sign a long-term extension starting in 2022-23, and that contract almost certainly would have had a higher cap hit than $6.25 million.
Addressing the first-pair defenseman hole with a player who doesn’t break the bank from a cap standpoint is huge for both the Flyers’ short-term and long-term planning. In fact, Fletcher is actually in a pretty solid spot from a cap compliance standpoint. Here’s a look at their cap situation, with my recent contract projections for pending RFAs Sanheim and Carter Hart included:
Yes, they’ll still need to jettison a contract to have space for a backup goalie upgrade and to fill out the rest of the roster. But it’s a lot more manageable of a task with Ellis’ number at $6.25 million instead of $8.25 million, for example. If Seattle poaches one of Gostisbehere, Jakub Voracek or James van Riemsdyk in the expansion draft next week, the Flyers should be absolutely fine — even if they don’t want to make any more major moves this summer.
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Yet I believe they do. And that leads into the final positive of this trade for Philadelphia: they filled their biggest need without emptying out their war chest. Fletcher still has all of his prospects. He still has the 13th selection in next week’s draft. He still has quality young, established NHL players like Sanheim and Travis Konecny if he wants to get in the mix for another blockbuster. The Ellis trade closes no doors for the Flyers in terms of what they can do over the next two weeks.
A defining offseason for the Flyers just got off to a roaring start, and it’s far from over.
— All statistics courtesy of Evolving-Hockey, Cap Friendly, and Corey Sznajder.
(Photo: Jamie Sabau / NHLI via Getty Images)