Jamie Drysdale’s tenure as a Flyer can be characterized as up and down. Lows, the lows being on the injured list again, but he still remains a fan favorite in Philadelphia for good reason. He’s only 22-years-old, and Drysdale still has untapped potential for this young defenseman who was thrusted into the NHL right away at the age of 18. For his efforts, he hasn’t been able to stay healthy, thus Drysdale hasn’t played many games in the NHL. He knows this, and he looked forward to a healthy offseason to train.
Drysdale said his focus this past offseason was to ensure that some of these injuries don’t happen again. It appeared he was going to work on physical conditioning, but he said he was banged up all year, but he wound up having a big procedure to the core area instead.
This surgery was a big one. Drysdale had surgery around the “Core Area”, to which I did not expect him to be at full health until December/January. The Flyers have a strong, bad history with these procedures, most recently, former Flyer Kevin Hayes had this procedure. If some forget how the season went for him, he couldn’t play at 100% for about half the season, he was in and out of the lineup for rest and multiple scraping surgeries or clean outs they were called.
Through all of this, Drysdale has played well since returning from injury. Drysdale has been more physical, as he continues to play well defensively. His gap control has been excellent, showing a sign that Drysdale is healthy and able to skate at 100%, “I think he’s improved,” Flyers’ Head Coach John Tortorella said last night. “Make a decision and go, I think he’s improved on that.”
Tortorella goes even further to state, Jamie Drysdale is beginning to get “A little hardness on him, skin on himself.” Believe it or not, Tortorella is right, Drysdale was seen throwing multiple Detroit Red Wings players into the boards this past Tuesday night in a battle in Philadelphia.
Through all this, Drysdale is as happy to be a Flyer and learning. Learning to become an adequate defenseman and a good teammate in the NHL. Drysdale is seen walking throughout the Flyers locker room smiling and laughing. Drysdale, for the past six or seven games, has skated well and made some nice plays offensively, as well as, defensively. He missed about a month due to injury, where his status was mostly day to day.
“I’m very encouraged by his first game by Jamie,” Flyers’ Head Coach John Tortorella said following the Utah Hockey Club game. “I thought he skated, he looked to shoot more. It’s too bad it gets called back on him. I thought Emil struggled on the Power Play, we put Jamie out there. I thought he played a pretty good game.”
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A young Defenseman in Drysdale is a very good skater. Actually, that’s his top asset to his game. He can transition out of the zone and up the ice with the best of them, mainly due to his speed. He hits the neutral zone with speed, and when that happens he’s hard to stop. Drysdale can rush the puck up the ice, while making plays. He uses his skating and puck handling skills, to become strong in transition. Drysdale has a good hockey IQ and sees the ice well, thus he’s able to make the right place and passes two is open teammates. That is what makes him elusive on the Power Play, he always seems to find the open man.
Drysdale has taken his game to another level, and continues to play well with the man advantage. He appears to finally be healthy for once, and it’s showing on the ice as of late. Recently, his good play has been overlooked with the play of Matvei Michkov, Noah Cates, Travis Konecny, and Samuel Ersson. All for good reason, but it appears that Jamie continues to take the next step, in a good way, in his development.
