This has gone on for longer than the current front office was in charge and the current head coach was behind the bench, but once again, the possibility of Morgan Frost being traded away from the Philadelphia Flyers feels real. And the volume is only getting louder and louder until it might be unbearable, after he was a healthy scratch once again on Monday night when the Flyers hosted the lowly San Jose Sharks. When Anthony Richard is seen as a better contributor than you, then you’re in trouble.
But is his absence warranted? Did his performance really deserve being singled out as someone deserving to be out of the lineup? In 15 games so far this season, Frost has scored one goal and six points but it isn’t like he’s not trying to produce out there. The 25-year-old has 29 shots on goal and attempted 50 shots in those 15 games — only Owen Tippett, Travis Sanheim, and Travis Konecny have had more shots on goal for the Flyers this season — but maybe having an on-ice shooting percentage at 5-on-5 of just 5.14 (the fourth-lowest on the team) is making his offense appear much worse.
That is just in one zone though. He might just be getting unlucky with deployment or just bad puck management when it comes to his lack of offense, but when it comes to his defense the healthy scratch feels deserved. Among all Flyers at 5-on-5, Frost sits at the bottom of the rankings for shots on goal against, shot attempts against, and is second-worst when it comes to unblocked shot attempts against. And that level of poor defense has not been able to survive the amount of offense he is producing on the ice; meaning he has abysmal underlying on-ice percentages.
Among the 443 players in the NHL with at least 150 minutes of 5-on-5 this season, Frost ranks 439th in shot attempt share, 424th in expected goals share, 439th in shots on goal share, and 430th in actual goals share. When he is on the ice, the Flyers are getting outplayed to a level beyond belief. It’s not even puck luck that is preventing the Flyers from scoring goals with him on the ice, every single metric you want to use to try and dig deeper into an individual player’s game is pointing to a rotten issue at controlling play when it comes to Frost.
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