There has been an undying desire for people that analyze hockey, to summarize a player’s impact with one single number. Something you can point to and see whether or not a player actually did a lot of what contributed to their team winning games, or that they are actually a detriment to the team and shouldn’t be playing as much as they are (or at all).
Obviously, in baseball we have WAR (Wins Above Replacement) and that is a sport that is a little bit easier to measure considering the specific game action and results being so black and white. For hockey, it’s a whole different animal but that has not stopped some people from tackling it and trying to get this metric off the ground for the NHL.
That’s where we turn to Evolving-Hockey, which is just one of the hockey stats websites that have their own catch-all metric — and it’s familiar enough since it’s Goals Above Replacement (GAR), and they translate that to WAR as well. If you want to read the ins and outs of how they came up with their specific GAR model and everything that went into it, you can read it in their own words. I just know I would botch it so badly if I tried to somehow paraphrase their equation, because I will never try to act like I am as smart as anyone that does this sort of work. I write hockey blogs.
Anyways, sometimes it’s good to just check your own biases or thoughts up against the perceived value of a player in one of these models. They aren’t perfect, but neither our own opinions of how good or bad some players are. And if we can take at least a couple steps beyond just looking at point totals to come up with a player’s value, then that’s a good thing.
With that in mind, and to bring it back to the Philadelphia Flyers, it might be useful just to see how much value, determined by this GAR/WAR model, they were able to add this offseason.
First, it’s not a perfect method or process and ultimately won’t mean a whole lot for next season. This is what they were able to do last year — we’re looking back. That is on a different team, with a different system, and with more or less of an opportunity than they are going to get in Philadelphia. It’s messy, but we’re here to get in the muck and look back and try to make sense of whether or not the Flyers did well this offseason based on just one metric.
How much WAR did the Flyers add?
The Flyers did not make any large additions. They weren’t able to steal Leo Carlsson away from the Anaheim Ducks, convince John Carlson to come to the Flyers instead of the literal Tampa Bay Lightning, or even get a moderate improvement by bringing in Darnell Nurse. There were no big splashes or anything really of note that we can point at as the man signifier that their playoff odds has dramatically increased.
But, they still made some additions and some pretty good ones in key positions, so let’s just see what the Flyers added and how much value they brought to the table last season.
Simon Benoit: -9.7 GAR, -1.6 WAR
Noel Acciari: 9.7 GAR, 1.6 WAR
Joseph Woll: 8.1 GAR, 1.3 WAR
By the numbers, the Flyers managed to add a total of 8.1 GAR (or 1.3 WAR) with the additions they made, thanks to Noel Acciari’s impressive 9.7 GAR being completely canceled out by Simon Benoit’s devastating minus-9.7 GAR.
Among the skaters, the major standout is clearly Acciari. His 9.7 GAR would have ranked fifth on the Flyers roster last season — more than some players like Matvei Michkov, Sean Couturier, and Owen Tippett — and he finished sixth on the Penguins. And breaking that down further, it was just by being a really balanced forward who took advantage of his opportunity. He was well above-average offensively and defensively in his impact and by taking just 25 penalty minutes, he got some value there too.
For Benoit, he was just such a disaster offensively that minus-9.1 of his minus-9.7 GAR was because of his even-strength offense — well the complete lack of it. He still finished below the bar with a minus-0.9 GAR for his even-strength defense, but that’s livable for a bottom-pairing defenseman who is more physical than anything.
It is really split up between even-strength and shorthanded value for goaltenders and Woll did a great job at both. His 3.1 GAR earned at even-strength was nowhere near to what Dan Vladar did for the Flyers last year (an insane 31.5 GAR that was the third-most in the entire NHL) but very solid. It is Woll’s 4.7 GAR earned shorthanded that really stands out though. It made him the 15th most valuable goaltender at shorthanded in the league last year and that’s good news for the Flyers.
Before we get into what this all means as a whole, let’s look at what they lost this offseason.
How much WAR did the Flyers lose?
The Flyers didn’t just make some additions and fill some holes that were already there. They consciously made changes and removed some players from those positions to then make these couple of changes. So, how did those players perform last season, according to WAR?
Garnet Hathaway: 1.8 GAR, 0.3 WAR
Luke Glendening: 1.8 GAR, 0.3 WAR
Emil Andrae: 3.5 GAR, 0.6 WAR
Sam Ersson: -9.7 GAR, -1.6 WAR
Alright. A whole lot of solid or very very bad.
All of Garnet Hathaway’s positive value came from his defensive work — which is the most obvious thing we can write on this website since he didn’t earn a single point last season until January 10. Emil Andrae had a solid showing in his limited role and his ability to remain out of the penalty box and draw a decent amount of penalties (1.3 GAR) was almost as valuable as everything he brought offensively (1.5 GAR).
Maybe the most impressive thing of the bunch is that Luke Glendening brought the same value that Hathaway did, but in just 18 games with the Flyers. He went on an unsustainable offensive bender with his total of five points (and generating a whole lot of scoring chances on that outstanding fourth line with Sean Couturier).
And then there’s Sam Ersson. He was obviously terrible and brought down this group to below league average. His minus-9.7 GAR was the fourth-worst among goalies in the entire NHL last season and it was basically just because he barely played that it wasn’t the worst.
Knowing these totals is great and all, but what really matters is if it means anything.
Did the Flyers get that much better, according to WAR?
As we already mentioned, this is a flawed exercise and should not mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things because it’s not like all of these players will bring the exact same amount of value. But in saying that, the Flyers did come out on top.
They “added” a total of 8.1 GAR/1.3 WAR this summer while “losing” minus-2.6 GAR, coming up with a net add of 10.7 GAR/1.8 WAR. That’s great! It’s undeniable that they improved in key areas while not really parting with any big value pieces. Sure, the Andrae-for-Benoit swap might do them in, but we’re talking about an extra defender. Which is also a key piece of all of this.
Since WAR is a cumulative stat, the size of a role for a player truly matters and that only means a bigger win for the Flyers.
Specifically, because of all the injuries to their blue line (and just not having the talent), Simon Benoit played a total of 73 games for the Leafs and averaged over 17 minutes a night. They depended on him to play a specific role and it would be shocking if Benoit was in the lineup and playing that much for the Flyers.
Further, the team fit is probably better too. Craig Berube was a miserable coach in Toronto and tried to force his style on a roster that didn’t fit it and who were abysmal defensively. For Rick Tocchet, there have been signs of players who have been negative defensive players coming to Philadelphia and being at least decent or just not as bad.
While we don’t expect Benoit to suddenly put in as much value as Andrae had for the Flyers last year — since that would be an insane jump — he shouldn’t be as detrimental as he was while in Toronto. If we add this context, that only makes the Flyers’ overall net WAR gain larger and they come out looking even better.
For even more context, since the 2007-08 season there has only been three Flyers defensemen who finished below minus-7.0 GAR in a season: Tony DeAngelo in 2022-23, Robert Hagg in 2018-19, and Keith Yandle in 2021-22. Those are three blueliners who had notoriously bad impacts on the team and two of them were more solid offensively while being terrible defensively. Since Benoit is the opposite, we can only imagine that the Flyers can perfectly handle someone who is incapable of producing any offense whatsoever and have it work.
Then, the goalie situation. Changing out Ersson for Woll cannot be overstated. It is a monumental shift in actual goaltending talent and even if the former Leaf plays fewer than the 39 games he did last season and sees a drop in his overall value, not having the black hole of Sam Ersson should mean so many more points in the standings, theoretically.
The only other big win has to be Noel Acciari and we don’t expect him to be one of the most valuable forwards on the Flyers, but it’s also not impossible. It’s not like he got to play 20 minutes a night to inflate those numbers and we won’t see that same level of impact in Philadelphia. Acciari was 10th on the Penguins’ forward depth chart, in a cemented fourth line with Blake Lizotte and Connor Dewar. Those are certainly two forwards who are stylistically different than Sean Couturier and (potentially) Nikita Grebenkin, as they possess a whole lot more speed, but Acciari could still be as impactful since he will basically have the exact same role. And if we want to label the Woll-for-Ersson swap as a big win, we might as well lump in Acciari-for-Hathaway as something that should be a big positive — even if the newcomer scores just 25 or so points.
Again, not a perfect exercise or something that will mean a whole lot when the games actually start, but if we’re going by how they performed last season under WAR, then the Flyers are a massive winner of the offseason in maybe the quietest way possible.
