The Philadelphia Flyers caught a lot of people off-guard when they decided to demote young defenseman Emil Andrae last week. It was even more surprising when John Tortorella said the next day that it was a “no brainer” to send the blueliner back to the AHL.
Andrae has been one of the Flyers’ best defensemen this season through his 20 games. His underlying metrics are fantastic with Philadelphia getting the majority of the shot attempts with him on the ice. We’re not going to dig too much into that here as our very own Aoife Craddock laid out a great argument as to why Andrae deserves a permanent roster spot on the Flyers.
The 22-year-old blueliner is one of the best six defensemen on the team. Period. There’s not much debate that can be had about that. However, his demotion has less to do with him and more to do with where the Flyers organization is right now: in a rebuild.
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