Photo Credit: Our very own Rob Windfelder
Jamie Drysdale’s tenure as a Flyer can be characterized as up and down. Low’s, 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 the sky is the limit 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, “I’m with a new team that treated me unbelievably,” Drysdale said. “It’s a great group, and I’m really excited to be here. I’m looking forward to a healthy next few years.”
Drysdale said his focus this past offseason was going 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.
The reason I write this is so people don’t write off Jamie Drysdale, a season in which he has struggled early. It’s just the Flyers have a string of bad luck with these type of procedures, with players returning healthy for the following season, with the likes of Kevin Hayes, Claude Giroux, and Shayne Gostisbehere. Giroux and Gostisbehere didn’t start playing like themselves until that February following their procedures. I warned people that offseason that Hayes might struggle, so I’m doing the same about Drysdale.
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Through all this, Drysdale is as happy to be a Flyer. Drysdale can be seen walking throughout the Flyers locker room smiling and laughing. He had a good game against the Utah Hockey Club on Sunday, in his return to the lineup from Injured Reserve (IR). Drysdale 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 Sunday’s 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.
“Good to be back in the lineup, real exciting. Sucks we didn’t get to win,” Drysdale said following Sunday’s game.
Drysdale just has to remain focused, and play his game the right way. He can use Sunday’s game as a building block, where actually he was very noticeable in a good way.
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