When the Philadelphia Flyers stepped up to the virtual podium during the second round of the 2020 draft and snagged undersized yet super smart left-handed defenseman Emil Andrae 54th overall, it seemed like a typical boom-or-bust mid-round pick. Now three years later and 21 years old, the Swedish defense appears ready to make waves for the Flyers sooner rather than later.
In March, Andrae signed an ATO to finish out the 2022-23 season with the Phantoms, and weeks later signing his full entry-level contract with the Flyers. He played 10 games in Lehigh Valley scoring 6 points, serving as the top left-handed defenseman after Egor Zamula went down with an injury and also took the top PP QB spot as well.
He was noticeably head and shoulders above everyone else in the AHL, and as development camp came and went in early July, the reports sated a very similar observation.
As we discussed last week, the defense is quite overcrowded at the moment. There are (at least) 10 players who will be fighting for spots out of camp. Cam York, Rasmus Ristolainen and Travis Sanheim are the three vets more or less guaranteed to have a roster spot. The rest of the combatants- Egor Zamula, Ronnie Attard, Sean Walker, Nick Seeler, Marc Staal and Victor Mete will join Emil Andrae to grab the remaining three spots. That’s seven lefties and three righties in total.
The biggest problem is there’s too much depth and not enough sure things. While that’s not a good thing for the Flyers as a whole, It could very well mean Andrae has a chance to capitalize and be the latter, working himself into a pillar for the current defense.
Theoretically, with Ivan Provorov out of the picture, that meant that Cam York can move back to his natural left side. If that’s the case and Andrae makes the roster,
Cam York – Rasmus Ristolainen
Travis Sanheim – Ronnie Attard
Emil Andrae – Zamula/Walker
Seeler-Staal-Attard
Though if York is comfortable enough to play on the right side for a little longer, that could open the 1LHD spot for Andrae, leaving something like this-
Emil Andrae – Cam York
Travis Sanheim – Rasmus Ristolainen
and the hodgepodge of Zamula, Attard, Seeler, Staal, and Walker to fight for the top third pair spots.
There’s not really a “perfect” outcome for any of this defense at the moment, but if Andrae can be the force that he’s been in very small sample sizes, it’s not totally crazy to think he could be the team’s new number one defenseman by season’s end if he makes the big club.
But making the big club may not be as cut and dry as just beating out a couple of raggedy veterans. There has been some chatter about Emil Andrae’s eligibility when it comes to the playing in the NHL/AHL this season.
Via Bill Meltzer on hockeybuzz.com
“Back in April 2022, the NHL signed a new transfer agreement with the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation … The other key change pertained to a “return policy” for many — but not all — NHL prospects drafted from Swedish clubs.
For players selected after the first round … it depends on whether the player makes the NHL team for opening night. If he’s in the NHL, that takes precedence. If, however, the player does not make the NHL roster, the decision-making power on whether he plays in the AHL or the SHL shifts to the Swedish Hockey League parent team.
There’s also an age component involved. Under the terms of the old agreement, the NHL club gained decision-making power to assign a Swedish team affiliated draftee to the AHL at age 21 or older … Under the new agreement, the age rule is bumped up to 24.
What happens if Andrae makes the opening night NHL roster, spends some time with the Flyers but the organization decides he’d benefit from further development … ? I am fairly certain, but am not 100 percent positive, that the control over where Andrae would go for the rest of the season would then revert to HV71. I’ve seen nothing about the creation of an automatic threshold the Flyers could trigger as an end-around by starting him on the NHL roster mainly for purposes of controlling an AHL assignment or SHL loan shortly thereafter.“
Simply put, it could be the NHL or back to Sweden for Andrae, but nobody seems to have a definitive answer just yet.
In a perfect world, he’d get the Cam York treatment- start the season in the AHL, once again prove he’s better than everyone and get an NHL recall closer to the mid-way point of the season when some of the veterans lose their appeal and a roster spot in much easier to snag.
But given the shallow talent level of the NHL defenseman (despite the sheer number of bodies) Andrae could very well make the opening night roster, even if he’s not quite ready for an everyday role just yet. There’s probably going to be a substantial amount of tagging in and out among the defense as the season goes on. So if he’s not quite ready and the organization wants him to play instead of watch, it may mean sending him back to Sweden for another season, especially if a year gets burned off his ELC either way.
Andrae has the opportunity to establish himself as the future of the Flyers defense this season. He may end up being the long lost star on the back end the organization has been looking for… Provided he can play in North America. Either way, with the Flyers in a “rebuild” it’s nice to see that one of the prospect may actually have some high-end potential, especially on a talent-barren main roster defense.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
Photo credit: phantomshockey.com
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