Philadelphia Flyers: 3 big challenges of the 2020-21 season

2. Filling the hole on defense

It’s been well documented how much the addition of Matt Niskanen helped the Flyers last year. From providing a veteran influence that the team’s blueline was sorely lacking to perfectly complementing Ivan Provorov so that he was able to put together the best season of his career, Niskanen earned high marks during his first season in Philadelphia.

Unfortunately, it ended up being his only season in town, as his somewhat surprising retirement announcement left the Flyers in a bit of scramble mode. They pivoted nicely by at least inking Justin Braun to a discount contract, and Niskanen’s salary coming off the books did free up some cap space for other moves. But the on-ice impact will be hard to replicate.

Luckily, there a couple plausible scenarios here.

The first and most obvious is that Philippe Myers builds off his strong rookie season and takes the next step as Provorov’s partner. We’ll find out soon enough if he has this kind of ceiling to his game. Travis Sanheim may also fill the void left by Niskanen, as he looks capable of logging even more than the 20:09 of ice time per game that the team trusted him with last year. Somebody has to play the hard minutes along with Provorov, and Sanheim might be the one, whether out of necessity or because his play dictates it.

Regardless of who regularly plays with Provorov, the signing of Erik Gustafsson adds yet another wrinkle to the mix. An offense-first (and second and third) blueliner in the mold of Shayne Gostisbehere, Gustafsson might be able to log enough power play time to give Provorov a break on the man advantage, keeping him fresher for other situations and lessening the load across the board.

Whatever scenario plays out, the team will miss what Matt Niskanen brought to the table. Hopefully it won’t be their undoing.