One of the bigger developments to come out of the first few days of the Philadelphia Flyers training camp is the announcement that Travis Sanheim will start 2023-24 playing on the right side. It’s a position Sanheim has played before, most notably throughout the second half of a breakout 2018-19 campaign. But he is a lefty who, like most, naturally plays that side.
A successful move to the right would be significant. First, it would let the Flyers keep Cam York on the left side rather than force him to acclimate to the right, and it could also boost Sanheim’s minimal trade value if teams know he can play both sides.
This isn’t the first time the Flyers have tried moving a player to a new position during camp. Sometimes it’s worked. Sometimes it’s really worked. Other times, it really hasn’t. With the preseason underway, here’s a look at a few times when the Flyers moved things around.
The Bad: Sam Morin to Left Wing, 2021
The Leadup: The Flyers entered the shortened 2021 season with a log jam on defense. Defenseman Sam Morin, meanwhile, was still trying to establish himself as an everyday NHLer after being taken in the first round of the 2013 Draft. Until then, he had played nine NHL games scattered across four seasons that included two ACL tears, the second of which ended his 2019-20 season only a month in.
Previous Experience: This is about as audacious of a position change as you can imagine. The Flyers’ hope was that the 6-foot-6 Morin could channel his physicality to make him one of the game’s most feared forecheckers. Philadelphia had been beaten up by Matt Martin in the playoffs the previous year; he racked up 40 hits and two goals in the New York Islanders’ seven-game second-round win over the Flyers. As the saying goes, if you can’t beat ’em, try to copy ’em as closely as you can.
How It Went: Getting a player, coming off two long-term injuries, to learn a totally foreign position went about as well as you would expect. Morin only played one NHL game at forward, and it went poorly. In 5:32 of ice time, he posted an ugly 30% Corsi for and 33.82% expected goals ratings, and the Flyers were outscored 1-0 with him on the ice in a Jan. 30 overtime win against the Islanders.
Morin quickly went back to the American Hockey League, where injuries to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms’ blue line found him back on defense. He played 19 games on defense for the Flyers that year and posted solid underlying numbers while tallying his first (and ultimately only) NHL goal. While it’s interesting when teams try to think outside of the box, this was too drastic a change to have much of a chance of succeeding.
The Good: Noah Cates to Center, 2022
The Leadup: Drafted in the sixth round in 2017, Noah Cates quickly emerged as a late-round gem with a strong collegiate career at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. After signing his entry-level contract in 2022, Cates delivered an excellent early audition, scoring nine points in 16 games at his natural position of left wing. The Flyers liked his defensive acumen, though, and Sean Couturier’s season-ending injury suffered just before the start of the training camp led to Cates making the switch.
Previous Experience: None at the NHL level. Cates had played the position at times in college, and his brother Jackson (a member of the Flyers organization from 2020-2023) is a center, but it was a big jump for the 23-year-old.
How It Went: About as well as it could have. Cates took a little bit to get acclimated to the position offensively, but his defensive results were there from the start. With Couturier on the shelf and head coach John Tortorella not exactly thrilled about the play of Kevin Hayes and (to a lesser extent) Morgan Frost, Cates became the team’s first-line center.
Related: Flyers’ Scrimmage Lines Give Glimpse of 2023-24 Outlook
That isn’t to say Cates is a true first-line caliber player, but stellar defensive stats, an offensive game that improved as the season progressed (he finished with a respectable 38 points), and earning his coach’s trust is a pretty darn good season, especially for a rookie. There’s still work to do – Cates only won 39.5% of his face-offs last season – but this move looks like a successful experiment.
The Great: Claude Giroux to Left Wing, 2017
Before The Change: Claude Giroux was firmly entrenched as the captain and face of the Flyers, but his stock was at an all-time low heading into the 2017-18 season. His point total had dropped in consecutive seasons, including his worst offensive season since his first full NHL campaign. In an effort to rejuvenate Giroux, then 29 years old, the team shifted him to left wing, where the team was thin.
Previous Experience: Giroux started his NHL career often playing on the right wing, but he had played at center for several years by this point. His experience playing on the left side at 5-on-5 was minimal, although he had been quarterbacking the team’s power play from the left side for years.
How It Went: If the Cates’ switch was a solid line-drive double into the gap, the Giroux position change was a 500-foot home run. Giroux immediately delivered a career-high 102 points that earned him a fourth-place finish in Hart Trophy voting. He hasn’t quite reached that level since, but he’s consistently scored at or near a point-per-game pace, even as the Flyers collapsed around him in 2021.
As an added bonus, moving Giroux to left wing opened up the first-line center spot for Sean Couturier. Couturier quickly evolved from being an analytical darling defensive center to nearly doubling his point total in 2017-18 and becoming a Selke Trophy finalist that season. Sanheim almost certainly won’t be a Norris contender, but if his move to the right helps York’s development, that would certainly be a positive outcome.
Advanced Statistics via Natural Stat Trick