Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

9

Jamie Drysdale

Philadelphia Flyers Defense

Minus-32 on an on-ice chance expectation of 45.13-45.79 — dead even — which is the clearest illustration in this book of what plus-minus measures.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2020-21ANA24358-1260002810.719:35
2021-22ANA8142832-26160011372.919:53
2022-23ANA8000-3200080.017:37
2023-24ANA/PHI343710-208100555.519:37
2024-25PHI7071320-32222016311.119:55
2025-26 so far
Career217175370-93543022915.819:44

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

7 goals and 13 assists in 70 games — 20 points at 19:55 a night, minus-32, the worst figure on the club and among the worst in the league.

49.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 47th percentile — dead average. His ice went 41-62 against an expectation of 45.13-45.79, which is an even split. Sixteen goals were conceded above expectation with him on the ice, and behind a goaltending group that finished 32nd in the league by twenty goals, that is what a minus-32 is made of.

The Finesse Game

63 attempts in 70 games at a median of 51 feet with 64 per cent from beyond 40. The shot is not the point and 7 goals on 63 attempts is a conversion rate that will not repeat.

The skating is elite for the position and the escape from a forecheck is the best thing about him. He is a genuine puck-mover, and 13 assists in 70 games on a club that scored 222 goals is not the measure of it.

The Physical Game

5-11 and 185 and among the lightest defencemen in the league. He does not clear a crease, he does not win a battle in the corner, and everything he does defensively he does with his feet and his stick.

22 penalty minutes in 70 games at twenty minutes a night is a very low rate, and it says he is rarely beaten badly enough to reach. That is the case for him, and it sits underneath a minus-32.

The Intangibles

Sixth overall in 2020 by Anaheim and traded here in 2024 for Cutter Gauthier — a trade that will be argued about for a decade.

217 games and a career minus-93 across two rebuilding clubs. He is 23, he has never played a meaningful game in April, and he has been asked to play top-four minutes since he was 19.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,137 minutes

Expected goals
49.6%
48th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
46.3%
19th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 41 for, 62 against. Expected: 45.1 and 45.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
30th
Numbers
48th

The two rank him within 18 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 69 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2024-25 · 1137 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2024-25

The club
PHI took 52.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.6% — 2.5 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second pair, 1,137 minutes at five-on-five — 80th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Nick Seeler46.9%52.5%45.8%
Travis Konecny46.7%51.2%52.4%
Matvei Michkov51.0%49.0%53.5%

46.9% together, 52.5% for him apart and 45.8% for Seeler apart. He was better away from Seeler, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Seeler.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

108 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 18 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 64% from beyond forty.