Ever since Emil Andrae stepped on to the ice for the Philadelphia Flyers this season, he has been surprisingly superb. Last season, he made the team out of training camp but after struggling in the first several games he got sent down for some more development in Allentown. That development certainly worked as at 22-year-old he looks the part of an impactful defenseman who could have potential to be a steady top-four contributor for years to come.
And with the Flyers just needing anyone decent to make a strong breakout pass or be able to play point on the power play well (two things Andrae can do) fans and media and basically everyone is crying out for him to stay. But why is he at risk of getting sent back down despite playing so well? Unfortunately, the only reason he was called up here was an injury to Cam York and the Flyers needing someone of his ilk to bring some jump. And boy, did he bring some leaping bounds of jump.
York is now on the verge of returning and we could see him back in action as early as this week. But, as the injuries start to pile up a month into the season, defenseman Jamie Drysdale was placed on Injured Reserve on Nov. 11 — meaning that the earliest he could potentially return is Nov. 18 but according to reports, it looks like the 22-year-old blueliner will be out for around two weeks.
This all matters because the Flyers were facing a tough decision. If York and Drysdale are healthy, they just simply do not have the numbers to keep Andrae on the team without making a separate transaction. The decision was looming but with Drysdale out, the can has been kicked several feet down the road. They will eventually have to make this call, though, and there are just a few things that they can do to keep Andrae on this team.
Because, after all, the young blueliner deserves it. Even if he stinks it up for the next week, he has put in enough work to get the benefit of the doubt and remain a Flyer. So, what can they do when everyone on the blue line is healthy again?
Send down a goalie
The most straightforward answer is stop carrying three goalies. A team only needs two (the most obvious thing we have ever written on this website) and the only reason the Flyers are carrying three has been the disappointing and tragic performances of Ivan Fedotov. But after getting a win over the Tampa Bay Lightning and looking decent, is it time to send Aleksei Kolosov back to Lehigh Valley to further develop in the AHL.
Honestly, the backup situation is still a mess. We would probably still prefer Kolosov over Fedotov in that role, but with the latter goaltender’s contract, having to go through waivers, and the disaster it would cause after practically promising an NHL role for him so that he could terminate his KHL contract; Fedotov is not going anywhere. Kolosov got his time in the NHL that he has so desperately wanted, but now just by the number’s game, sending him back down is the easiest solution.
Waive a struggling defenseman
If the Flyers desperately want to hold on tight to the three goaltenders and are worried that if they send Kolosov down he might beg and plead to go back to the KHL, then there’s another option. Egor Zamula has not been playing well whatsoever. We saw a glimpse of maybe what the undrafted blueliner can do with a little bit of a longer leash last season — mostly out of desperation, the Flyers had him on the power play and higher up in the lineup — but it has just been dreadful.
All of the on-ice underlyings metrics have him well below the 50-percent mark and an on-ice goals for percentage of 28.48 at 5-on-5 just shows how many pucks are crossing behind a Flyers netminder when Zamula is on the ice. It’s just not been good statistically or pleasant at all to watch. He would have deserved a demotion weeks ago but him being the designated best friend to Matvei Michkov, as someone who has been in Philadelphia for a little bit and can speak his language, is certainly preventing that.
If they think Michkov is fine on his own or with someone like Fedotov to hang out with, then this might happen and it would be an easy Andrae-for-Zamula swap when it comes to a fully healthy blue line.
Give a player a dangerous reset
Look, we’re just steadily going down the list of transactions that would keep Andrae in Philadelphia, which is essentially ranked from most to least likely. The goaltender move is easy, sending down Zamula through waivers is a little bit harder to see, and now, we don’t really see this happening but it’s in the realm of possibility.
Tyson Foerster has not been great. Or even good. Or even just normal. Through 15 games, the 22-year-old winger has two goals and three points while playing some very solid minutes. That’s bad. He is now on the fourth line and certainly deserves that spot until things improve. And it’s not even just offensive production — while he struggled last season at scoring, he was doing all the good things like his work along the boards and being good enough defensively for his underlying numbers to shine. This year, those things have gone away and now we’re just stuck with a player not scoring and not doing things that help the team win.
Foerster is, though, still eligible to go down to the AHL and not have to pass through waivers. It would certainly be a weird move that could be surprising and as a real big transaction, but it could be a really nice reset for the player. We have seen it before with struggling young wingers — Cole Caufield feels like the most prominent recent example of going down to the AHL to re-find his game — and Foerster might just need to do exactly that.
It might be accelerated because of Andrae’s presence and needing him on the team. This might have been a trigger pulled in a month or so if Foerster’s performances remained the same, but now that the numbers need to work, they can kill two birds with one stone by giving a young player the spot in the lineup he deserves, and sending another one down to reset.
Might not go over so well, sending down a player we were thinking they would not hesitate to sign long-term this season, but it might just be something they do.
Just make a trade
And finally, the move that can always happen and that we as fans always love — this team making a damn trade. We love trades. We love thinking about trades and hypothesizing about trades. So, to keep Andrae on this team, they can just simply move a player out (that they might trade at the deadline this season anyways) to make the numbers work.
It’s simple math. We love simple math. Need your roster to go down by one? Send a player to another team in exchange for something that will not be on your team. Easy peasy, right?
Regardless how they do it, it is just so clear that Andrae needs to stay on this team and thankfully the Flyers know it. John Tortorella cannot stop pairing the young defenseman and Danny Briere lumped him in with Cam York and Jamie Drysdale as gifted, young blueliners who should be on this team when they want to compete again.
It doesn’t really matter how they keep him as a Flyer, they just have to.
