The bar was on the floor for Jamie Drysdale. During the Philadelphia Flyers defenseman’s month-long absence due to injury, as the team was continuing to play decent hockey and improve from when Drysdale was actually on the team; the young blueliner’s reputation sank among the fan base.
It was already fairly low to begin with. Drysdale has had an incredibly rough first several months as a Flyer, since coming over here from the Anaheim Ducks in the infamous Cutter Gauthier trade. His second half of the 2023-24 season was marred with injury, so the hope was that with a summer to get fully healthy, he would come swinging and maybe fulfill that sixth-overall pick potential as a contributor on the blue line. Unfortunately, after being a ghost to start this season and having players like Cam York and Travis Sanheim be the superior defensemen, Drysdale was out with another injury.
But, there is hope.
Drysdale made his return to the ice on Sunday night against the Utah Hockey Club, and with us gritting our teeth, palms all sweaty in anticipation for what we would see from the 22-year-old; trying to determine if we should grab our pitchforks or not — he was actually pretty dang good.
The young defenseman did just about everything you could have asked for aside from scoring and appearing on the box score after 60 minutes. Drysdale was bang even at 5-on-5 when it came to the shot attempt share, but thanks to the quality of those attempts earned exceptional an on-ice expected goals share of 77.42%, according to Natural Stat Trick. The Flyers had seven shots on goal when he was on the ice, and Utah was held to just two. And, Drysdale was on the ice for both Flyers goals and none of the four that Utah eventually scored in the Flyers’ 4-2 loss. On an individual basis, Drysdale managed to also get three shot attempts off, get one shot on goal, block two shots, and possibly most importantly suffered just one giveaway but earned three takeaways on Sunday.
All of that in 18 minutes and 54 seconds of ice time and on the third pair with Nick Seeler. Not too shabby at all.
And beyond the recorded numbers, Drysdale almost made an immaculate return with notching a goal of his own. The tally was eventually called back due to Travis Konecny interfering with the Utah netminder, but it’s really the effort that counts (beyond scoring his second goal of the season).
While he had to walk away without earning a point, by our eyes — and just about everyone else’s — Drysdale looked much more in-sync with the game than he was to start this season. He was quicker in his reactions and was able to make several plays with the puck that felt like he was truly getting what head coach John Tortorella is saying when he mentions playing at a high pace. While at other times, Drysdale would be caught with possession and just get trucked or get the puck stripped off his stick, on Sunday the young blueliner was able to truly look the part of an eventual top-four defenseman that can be responsible in all three zones.
With this start on the bottom pair, there’s less desperate need for Drysdale to do everything that he was able to do in his earlier years. Now, it feels like he just needs to get back in the right development path and he could be something special, eventually.
