When the Philadelphia Flyers stepped up to the podium and selected defenseman Cam York 14th overall in the 2019 draft, they were hoping for a new cornerstone of their defense to emerge from the pick. Now, as the 2023-24 NHL season is on the horizon, the coronation of Cam York as the team’s top blueliner is about to take place.
The Flyers dealt away Ivan Provorov during the offseason, meaning -ready or not- York is going to be the team’s top left-handed defenseman. York, now 22 with a birthday in January, has two partial NHL seasons under his belt, with 54 games coming during the 22-23 campaign and 30 amassed during 21-22. He has spent a bulk of those minutes serving on the right side in favor of Keith Yandle, Nick Seeler and Provorov taking the left.
There are some eerie parallels between the state of the defense when Provorov showed up in 2016 and now that York is ready to make the same leap in 2023.
Ivan Provorov was thrown directly into the deep end, averaging 22 minutes of ice time during his rookie season in 2016-17. To make matters worse, he was placed alongside human anchor Andrew MacDonald for a majority of the campaign. It was a serious uphill battle for Provorov, and considering his quality of partner never really improved for a vast majority of his seven-year tenure, one has to wonder if the fact that he was playing basically by himself every night killed most of the potential he seemed to have early in his career.
With York destined to fill Provorov’s shoes as the team’s top left-handed defenseman, a lack of quality below him in the lineup and nothing resembling a top-pair righty either, are the Flyers setting up York for a similar fate to Provorov?
York has averaged 19:27 minutes a night during his career thus far, which will surely rise in 2023-24. Plus, there’s a good chance he’s lined up next to Rasmus Ristolainen on the top pair with practically no NHL-caliber talent to speak of on the rest of the blueline.
On the whole, Ristolainen isn’t nearly as bad as some make him out to be, and overall better than Andrew MacDonald was, but that doesn’t mean he should be seeing top pair minutes regularly. But the team may not have much of a choice. Sean Walker is their only other right-shot defenseman on the roster, with Ronnie Attard the only notable RHD prospect with a chance to make the NHL. The rest of the random bodies filling out the depth are all lefties, with a severe lack of talent throughout the ranks.
York will be commanding a listless ship, just as Provorov was years ago.
What to expect from York himself is that of a modern day jack-of-all-trades puck mover who can hold his own defensively as well. He’s pretty much a hybrid of Provorov and Sanheim, the hockey IQ and minute munching of the former but a much more offensively polished version of the latter. They’re hoping he’s the premier two-way defenseman they’re looking for.
Now, as the projected number one, all those aspects are going to get put to the test. The hockey IQ is undoubtedly there, He has produced at least some degree of offense at every level he’s played, though may not necessarily be near the elite point-per-game status that some defenseman are capable of reaching.
The biggest question is whether or not he can flawlessly handle an uptick in minutes, and where exactly are those minutes coming from? York is averaging just shy of 20 minutes a game so far during his career, whereas Provorov was just over 24. Now, four minutes may not sound like a lot at face value, but stretched over a full season, it’s a massive ask. Four additional minutes over 82 games is an additional 328 minutes of hockey.
A sizable chunk of those minutes Provorov ate came on the penalty kill. He averaged 2:42 of PK time a game last season for a whopping 221 minutes total, both of which were among to top in the league, and in Provorov’s case, it’s a crown he’s held for a majority of his career. Do the Flyers deploy York in a PK role next season? Or at least anywhere close to the role they assigned Provorov in the past?
Chances are, York is going to see PK minutes, but not nearly to the extent that his former teammate did. He’s probably going to pick up the slack on the powerplay and the majority of the penalty kill minutes will be split amongst the rest of the dead-alive corpses on the blue line.
There’s very much a “by committee” approach on the defense next season, as evidenced by the quantity versus quality approach they’ve built. York is the de facto head of the table, but with so many moving pieces around him, there’s a chance he’s worked into his new role rather than thrown into it, but on the flip side, if he’s the only guy who shows a shred of talent, his plate could get full quick as the relied upon top lefty.
Will Cam York be the long-term solution on defense? If he can rise to the occasion and carry this otherwise lackluster D-corps to a worthwhile season, he could have a job for life. If he gets dragged down because the rest of the of the team isn’t up to snuff, the Flyers will have no one but themselves to blame for throwing yet another promising talent under the bus thanks to their inability to insulate their own players.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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