An ongoing thread of discussion around this Flyers season has been, largely, of development. This was a big year for learning and growing among players at the top of the lineup, and while that’s drawn a good deal of attention, what’s flown under the radar has been the development of defenseman Emil Andrae in a depth role for the team.
Beginning the season in a fight for a lineup spot, Andrae kept his head down and earned his return to the big club and an expanded role (in terms of games played, and, for a time, role in the lineup) on the team. His season wasn’t perfect, but he saw some positive progress made in his game from start to finish, and picked up some useful lessons along the way for his part in this long season and push into meaningful late season and postseason games at this highest level.
| Games played | Goals | Assists | Points | PIM | Shots On Goal | Shooting Percentage | Average TOI |
| 61 | 2 | 11 | 13 | 22 | 36 | 5.6 | 15:20 |
Looking at the whole of the season, the Flyers were able to get a modest level of production from Andrae, more or less in keeping with the role that he was given to work with. Picking up a pair of goals on the season, they were able to tap in a bit to the strength of his shot (a shot which was, largely though, being a bit underused, as he only recorded a shot on goal in about every other game, on average), but he made more of an impact throughout this year on the playmaking side. One of Andrae’s biggest strengths in his game is his ability to move the puck well, and while this was working well for him on the whole, and popped the most in his impacts in transition, we did see a nice level of poise from his as a distributor in the offensive zone, flexing that vision and clean passing to set up a good volume of chances.
| (5v5) Goals For % | Expected Goals For % | Corsi For % | High Danger Attempts For % | PDO |
| 62.07 | 53.31 | 49.61 | 52.17 | 1.039 |
Digging into the underlying numbers, and the complete picture is quite a solid one. All of this does come with a bit of an asterisk, as most of this work was done in more of a sheltered depth role, but all the same, on the whole, the Flyers were in a better position when Andrae was on the ice. The Flyers weren’t exactly a spectacular play driving team this season, at least as far as overall shot attempts are concerned, so even though that Corsi For percentage in a tick below breakeven, that still grades out well relative to the rest of his teammates.
Elsewhere, we can see that the Flyers were able to take control of the share of quality offense generated in Andrae’s minutes, and, even more critically, they were able to tilt the share of scoring very comfortably in their favor, rounding out a sound level of impact.
| (5v5) Points Per 60 | Primary Points Per 60 | Shots On Goal Per 60 | Shot Attempts Per 60 | Expected Goals Per 60 |
| .82 | .69 | 2.11 | 7.23 | 0.19 |
Once we adjust for usage, the individual impacts still remain pretty modest. We saw already that he wasn’t getting heaps of shots on goal this season, and while some of that does point to some issues in accuracy, the broader issue is a lesser shooting mindset. Some of this makes sense, Andrae doesn’t play the volume shooter role generally, feeds more on his playmaking, but there remains a sense that there’s more to be done here.
There’s room for improvement here, as Andrae’s offensive instincts that he showed comfortably at the AHL level would have us believe that there’s some untapped potential here at the next level. He might not ever be a massive producer at this level, but we can’t help but feel that he’s leaving some chances on the table, so it will be interesting to see if the Flyers can’t squeeze a bit more offense out of him by developing that area of his game and helping to bolster a bit more confidence for him to activate therein.
Did Andrae live up to expectations?
This season got off to a bit of a disappointing start for Andrae, as it felt like, even in limited usage, he had done enough in the preseason to earn himself a spot on the opening night lineup, but it wasn’t to be. All the same, it was nice to see him avoid sulking in his stint with the Phantoms to start the season, and the good work he put in with them ensured that he wouldn’t be long for the AHL, in the end.
Once back up with the Flyers, though, Andrae was able to deliver some solid play in that sheltered third pair role, stepping up well as a dependable puck mover while still maintaining a good (if still imperfect at times) level of defensive poise. When he’s at his best, Andrae brings a well-balanced style of play, and seeing that continuing to translate well in NHL usage was a big positive from this season. He had a nice stretch wherein he gelled well with Jamie Drysdale on the team’s second pair, and even though there were some moments in there where some poor decisions made with the puck left him exposed, that taste of more meaningful minutes will be useful experience for him to keep in the back pocket.
But even some of those dicier moments that unfolded for him throughout this season, despite obviously not being optimal, were still within the realm of expectation for a young player still settling into the league and working to carve out a full-time role for himself at this level. There’s certainly room to improve in his game, but he’s learning the hard lessons and has datapoints aplenty to inform his future training, and all of that is valuable.
What can we expect from Andrae next season?
Next season is going to be an interesting one for Andrae, and once again for reasons outside of his control. The Flyers are set to head into the season with a bit of a logjam, if an offseason move isn’t made to clear up space. Andrae might be approaching another camp where he’s fighting for a regular place in the lineup, but the door might also be open for him to be moved out completely to free up lineup spots for others. His status is a big question mark, and management will have some big decisions to make in regard to their handling of him and the defense group as a collective.
But as far as the progression of his game goes, the pieces that he can control, we can expect to see him continue to work to take that next step forward. He’s proven reasonably well that he can be trusted in a sheltered third pair role, but the next task is tightening up some of that decision making to prove himself more worthy of a chance to play up in the lineup. Context will matter here too, whether the spot is open for him in the first place, but there’s work he can put in to, at the very least, build up the level of trust his coaching staff can place in him. He’s shown himself to be a coachable player up to this point, so there’s reason for optimism that he can get there, but it’s going to take more work on a pretty narrow margin for error to get there.
How do we grade Andrae’s 2025-26 season?
All in all, while it wasn’t perfect and while he did still have to work himself through some challenging moments, Andrae put in some really good work this season to move himself closer to that full-time NHL job. The fact that he was able to hold his own quite nicely when given that promotion to play on the second pair with Drysdale speaks well of the development that he’s put into his game up to this point, and factored well into setting a sound foundation from which he can build up in this season coming up.
Grade: B
