Emil Andrae, just one year ago, was playing top-four minutes for John Tortorella’s Philadelphia Flyers. It looked like the club might have unlocked a new level for their Swedish defender, until the very moment it stopped. You can almost pinpoint on a calendar when things changed for Andrae– December 20, 2024, the day he was sent back to the AHL.
“It’s gotten too rich for him,” said Tortorella about the demotion. He was pretty clearly told to work on a specific part of his game, and perhaps emphasize others, but when he returned to the NHL that February, the player of old was missing.
Rick Tocchet isn’t playing him, either
Any thoughts of a new coaching staff taking more of a liking to Andrae’s game were short-lived. He failed to make the team out of camp, with guys like Adam Ginning and Noah Juulsen surviving that round of cuts. Andrae bounced back and forth a few times in the early going, receiving two one-game call-ups before a return to normal playing time in November. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary, though he wasn’t consistently standing out or making much happen every night.
It did always feel like he was still on the bubble of the lineup– Rasmus Ristolainen would be returning at some point, and it became a bit of a position battle between Noah Juulsen and Andrae. Within a month of Ristolainen’s return in mid-December, Andrae was having trouble getting to the 15 or 16 minute mark on most nights, and was a healthy scratch for five games leading up to the long Olympic break. Tocchet’s unwillingness to bend the lineup for Andrae led to a four week disappearance for the young defenseman, and with Ristolainen remaining a Flyer through March’s trade deadline, there isn’t much coming in the way of change.
On Monday, Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet talking about Emil Andrae: “We gotta get him in somehow… I don’t want him to not play these next two games.”
— Travis Ballinghoff (@travieballin26) February 6, 2026
The head coach (the guy who makes the lineup decisions) healthy scratched him the next two games. pic.twitter.com/fXlJB9DMOV
In a 65 minute battle in Pittsburgh on March 7, Andrae played just 7:36. He would again come out of the lineup for the next game, and it remains to be seen how he’s used the rest of the way, but we’ve got plenty of sample size saying he’s not in favor of the current staff.
Other prospects are on their way
Danny Briere addressed one particular roster logjam at the deadline, trading Bobby Brink to the Minnesota Wild for defenseman David Jiricek. While he freed up a roster spot for Alex Bump to get a look, Ristolainen remained, and now Jiricek will be knocking on the door before too long. Suddenly, with Oliver Bonk also waiting in the wings, the Flyers will need to move one or two defenders in the summer just to clear space.
The organization doesn’t seem quite as motivated to move things along for Andrae’s sake; the seven minutes he just played suggests they’re probably not too high on him at this point. With Jamie Drysdale and Cam York considered “undersized”, the Flyers have prioritized adding more size than Andrae will ever have. Jiricek would be one of the bigger players on the roster, and with his waiver eligibility expiring this summer, will have to have a spot in the NHL roster next season– likely at Andrae’s expense. If Bonk has a good training camp, he may push for a spot himself. The Flyers might choose to part ways with Andrae in a trade, but the way they’ve devalued him, it’s going to be tough to extract much value from a swap.
We may already have seen the best of him
Andrae looked pretty intriguing as a rookie– not Shayne Gostisbehere exciting, but his puck-moving ability was one of the best on the blue-line. Even Tortorella had noted as such when they demoted him that December. There was a confident player in there at one point, but somewhere along the way, Andrae lost what made him unique. It felt like the risk factor had been beaten out of his system; he was playing it safe to stay in the lineup rather than being dynamic.
In roughly the same amount of even-strength ice time, Andrae’s analytics have taken a pretty significant hit. The actual goals percentage could be explained by no longer having the worst goaltending in hockey punishing every mistake, but the process behind it has deteriorated a little. These aren’t bad numbers, but if a defenseman is going to be undersized, the reality is that he’s going to have to play better than the average guy to make a name for himself in this league. At 24, it could be time to move on. A change of scenery would be a good refresh, and there might be a team willing to give the Flyers a center prospect or a mid-round pick.
