The Flyers may have fallen short of any aspirations of an even deeper run into the playoffs, with this weekend’s loss to the Hurricanes bringing their season to an end, but on the whole this was still a tremendously successful season for the team. The growth from start to finish broadly was notable, but particularly for the team’s young players, this process was an informative one.
Players like defenseman Emil Andrae, who’s played the better part of two seasons with the big club now, learned a lot about what will be required not just of their individual games to be successful at this level, but also what is needed from the collective team game to push themselves to the next level. And, as a contract year unfolded, Andrae put in some critical work to polish his game and work towards carving out a role for himself as a regular at the NHL level.
Andrae controlling what he can
There’s no denying that for this Flyers group as a whole, this season was a wild one, with all of the changes the roster dealt with throughout and the dramatic swings in productivity, from the low point in January to the highs to their push down the stretch run into the playoffs, and for as big of a reward as that playoff run made for, it was still a draining process for the players, when that step back to look at it is taken.
“It’s been a long season, even for me,” Andrae told media at Tuesday’s breakdown day. “Coming into this season, my expectation on myself was to grab a spot right away and, you know, establish myself in this league and in this team. And started in the AHL for a little bit and then put my head down and got back here, and started playing more and, you know, start earning more opportunities and to play more. And I start to play with [Drysdale] there for a little bit, and I think we had a good run. And then, you know, we started losing games there in the middle of the season before the break, and obviously at the end got a little in and out from the lineup. And then obviously I think, if you look overall during the season, I think I’ve I learned a lot and I think I took a step in my game overall. So, you know, it’s up and down like for everybody, but overall I think it was pretty good.”
Andrae’s season may have been an up and down one — for some reasons within his control, and some outside of his control — but there was never a doubt watching it all unfold that he was working to make the most of it. Andrae did well to earn that place playing up in the lineup, on that second pair with Jamie Drysdale, but he was still putting in good work away from that to find an equally effective game in more limited minutes, when he was placed down on that third pair, but also more broadly to develop his more mature game.
“I think just playing with less mistakes, you know,” he went on, “maturing a little bit. Obviously for a player like me, you know, [you] want to move the puck and be offensive minded, you have kind of have to take some risks out there, but I think I’ve been learning a little bit more about that, how to be successful and, you know, there’s a little balance of being creative and also build your brand and, you know, get your coaches to trust you.”
Through his time down in the AHL, Andrae learned a lot about what it means to play an effective professional game in North America, but keeping that up when graduating up to the next level is another challenge entirely. And while that graduation might not have been perfect, and there were some big mistakes made along the way, the effort and the dedication to learning from those mistakes was always there, and that commitment to continual learning is something that Andrae will take with him into this summer of training.
“Obviously, getting stronger, getting bigger,” he emphasized, “and I think that if I can take a couple steps in my explosiveness and the quickness out there, I’ll be a lot better as a player. I think if you look at the the star players out there, their, the first couple steps are really quick and, you know, for a smaller guy like me, I think that’s something I need to work on and get better at. And that’s I think that’s going to help me to take the next step.”
There’s been no shortage of external discourse throughout this season about the ceiling of the effectiveness of Andrae’s game at this level and his long-term fit with the organization, but it’s encouraging to see the lack of acknowledgment of any of that, and instead the focus shifted to self-reflection and improvement of those critical elements of his game.
Will it be enough?
There’s a maturity in Andrae’s approach, of shutting out any outside noise, and just putting his head down and working to improve his game in the areas he needs to in order to earn greater and more consistent trust from his coaching staff, and that’s certainly commendable, but it’s also worth a reminder that all of that good work doesn’t exist in a vacuum. That is, Andrae could put in a perfect summer’s worth of training and tinkering with his game, but the Flyers will still be heading into next season with a logjam at the defense position. Even if Noah Juulsen isn’t brought back and no new veteran is brought in to replace him, the Flyers are still looking at a full house — the Flyers would already be sitting at six defensemen, and the arrival of David Jiricek (and his inability now to be sent down to the AHL without requiring waivers) and Oliver Bonk’s surge up the depth chart to the point of getting an NHL playoff game just a few short weeks after his single-game debut into the league mean that they have some difficult decisions to be made ahead of them. Extras can be carried, to be sure, but whether this benefits the players enough to justify it is an open question, and more likely, something is going to have to give before the time for training camp rolls around.
All the same, Andrae still holds some amount of control over his own destiny. He can’t be in the room pulling strings when management might be discussing trades, but his continued improvement and dedication to growing his game in the right direction through hard work can make their decisions much more difficult. It’s not a decisive level of influence, but it’s enough to guide the process, all the same.
