Daily News | Playing with consistency in the Flyers’ disappointing season, Travis Sanheim shows what it means to be a leader
Early in the third period against the New York Rangers on April 3, defenseman Travis Sanheim showed in a span of 12 seconds the value he has as a two-way defenseman.
For Konecny, one of Sanheim’s closest friends on the team, Sanheim is so offensively gifted that he considers him to be “one of those defensemen that could play forward.” But over the course of his seven professional seasons between the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and the Flyers, Sanheim has rounded out his game, finding a balance between the offensive and defensive sides of his game.
“The harder part is when you make that jump to each level is making sure you’re solid defensively first and then kind of adding to the rest of your game,” Sanheim said. “So I think that’s kind of why it usually takes me a bit.” Sanheim found that as a young defenseman, the NHL was “overwhelming at times” going up against superstars night after night. Aside from the physical demands of the NHL schedule, Sanheim acknowledged the mental challenges the transition presented.
Dating back to March 2, 2021, for the final 38 games of the season, Sanheim was minus-25, the lowest among Flyers defensemen. Going into the 2021-22 season, Sanheim set a goal that even if the team was playing poorly as a whole, Sanheim wouldn’t let his own game devolve. This season, Sanheim leads Flyers defensemen with 31 points , all of which have come at even strength. He’s also plus-10, a team high, and has only finished 19 games this season in the negative. Sanheim is averaging 22:55 of ice time a game, a career high by over a minute.
“Even in practice when he was hitting guys, and I was happy that he was my partner, and I didn’t have to go up against him,” Sanheim said. Together, the 6-foot-3, 208-pound Sanheim and the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Ristolainen comprise a “big pair” that lend themselves to the “tough to play against” quality that the Flyers aspire to attain, per Schultz.
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