This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Travis Sanheim
Philadelphia Flyers Defense
The largest pair on the club by a distance, and both halves of it read better with him than without.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | PHI | 49 | 2 | 8 | 10 | -6 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 72 | 2.8 | 15:35 |
| 2018-19 | PHI | 82 | 9 | 26 | 35 | -4 | 22 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 121 | 7.4 | 19:34 |
| 2019-20 | PHI | 69 | 8 | 17 | 25 | +4 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 110 | 7.3 | 20:09 |
| 2020-21 | PHI | 55 | 3 | 12 | 15 | -22 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 100 | 3.0 | 21:53 |
| 2021-22 | PHI | 80 | 7 | 24 | 31 | +9 | 34 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 123 | 5.7 | 22:58 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 335 | 29 | 87 | 116 | -19 | 131 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 526 | 5.5 | 20:18 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 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
80 games, 7 goals and 24 assists at 22:58 a night, plus-9, thirty-four penalty minutes, 123 shots. That ice time is the 82nd percentile among the 202 defencemen who played forty games. Seventeenth overall in 2014, five seasons, 335 games, 116 points.
The Finesse Game
1.15 even-strength points per 60 is the 74th percentile and not one of his thirty-one points came on the power play — forty-one seconds a night, and nothing to show for it.
4.02 shots per 60 is the 42nd percentile, which is ordinary volume, but the geography is not: nineteen per cent from the slot is the 92nd percentile among defencemen and a 45-foot median is the 7th. He shoots from closer in than ninety-three per cent of the position.
48.3 per cent of the expected goals and 47.3 per cent of the attempts out of 42.0 per cent offensive-zone starts, the 115th-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts.
His ice went 79-66 against an expectation of 63.84-68.20 — fifteen goals of surplus going forward on a club that finished 31st in the league in scoring.
And the pair is the file. He shared 1,914 five-on-five attempts with Rasmus Ristolainen, the largest pairing on the roster by a distance, and together they took 47.5 per cent of the expected goals. Apart, he is a 49.8 per cent player across 1,056 attempts and Ristolainen is a 42.9 per cent player across 451. The number they share sits much closer to Sanheim’s than to Ristolainen’s.
The Physical Game
2.09 hits per 60 is the 19th percentile at 6-4 and 222 pounds, and 4.64 blocks per 60 is the 66th. He is a large man who does not play a heavy game, and the club had four others who did.
0.49 penalties drawn per 60 against 0.56 taken, thirty-four penalty minutes in eighty games.
The Intangibles
8.74 miles per 60 is the 83rd percentile among defencemen and 2.8 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 is the 82nd.
22.5 mph top speed is the 77th percentile — three separate skating measurements in the upper fifth of the position, and the shot at 93.9 mph the 42nd.
He is 26 with five NHL seasons and has never had a season this heavy. The ice time, the shot geography and the ground covered all say top pair; the possession shares say top pair on a club that finished 27th in attempts. Those two things are not in conflict and the pairing arithmetic is the reason.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
19.3% of his attempts in the slot, 93rd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- durable· was available
80 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
48.3% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 44.5% for his club in the minutes he sat: +3.8, 92nd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:25 a game at five-on-five, 92nd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“8.74 miles per 60 is the 83rd percentile among defencemen and 2.8 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 is the 82nd.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,553 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.3%
- 41st pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.3%
- 32nd pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 79 for, 66 against. Expected: 63.8 and 68.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 17 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 62 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 80 games
- Top speed
- 22.5 mph
- 85th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.09 a game
- Distance
- 3.34 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 93.9 mph
- 60th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 1553 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, 2021-22
- The club
- PHI took 46.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.3% — 2.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,553 minutes at five-on-five — 99th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rasmus Ristolainen | 47.5% | 49.8% | 42.9% |
| Travis Konecny | 50.5% | 47.3% | 47.6% |
| Cam Atkinson | 50.6% | 47.5% | 40.1% |
47.5% together, 49.8% for him apart and 42.9% for Ristolainen apart. Ristolainen was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Ristolainen than for him.
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
171 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 30 feet. 15% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 58% from beyond forty.