Photo by Eric Hartline/USA Today Sports
Flyers forward James van Riemsdyk has always been a streaky player. When he’s scoring goals, he’s seemingly scoring them in bunches. When he’s struggling though, it can get ugly.
Once again, the 31-year-old forward has struggled to find a middle in a shortened 56-game regular season.
The Middletown, NJ native can be a force to be reckoned with in front of the net. In fact, camping out in front of the net is van Riemsdyk’s bread and butter. He has some of the best hand-eye coordination in the league.
He’s usually camped out there on the powerplay and a lot of the time when the Flyers are set up in the offensive zone at even strength as well.
Early on in the season, van Riemsdyk was one of the hottest players in the NHL.
In the month of January, he registered 13 points in the Flyers first ten games of the season, scoring five goals and assisting on eight others. He was even named one of the NHL’s Stars of the Month for the month of January.
In the month of February, van Riemsdyk picked up right where he left off. He finished the month with 12 points scoring five goals and assisting on seven others.
The veteran forward was off to a scorching start. He was tied for sixth in the NHL in points with 25 along with Chicago Blackhawks forward Alex DeBrincat and Washington Capitals forward Nicklas Backstrom. He led his team in goals (10), assists (15), and points (25).
Then came the month of March and van Riemsdyk, along with the Flyers, began to cool down.
Now, with only 11 regular season games remaining for the Flyers, he and his team find themselves in a major slump.
In 27 games played, starting from March 2 to the Flyers last game which took place on Sunday night, van Riemsdyk has registered only ten points. He has only four goals and six assists in that span of games.
For awhile, van Riemsdyk was performing at such a high level that it seemed as if he had moved past his streaky play.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
As van Riemsdyk’s productin dipped, so did the Flyers.
That’s not to say the Flyers recent struggles of late are on him, but he’s definitely contributed to them.
The inability to be consistent, or in other words, find a middle, has become evident once again for van Riemsdyk.
Early on in the season, he was scoring goals, setting guys up, getting in on the forecheck, winning puck battles along the boards, and helping the Flyers win hockey games. He was parked in front of the net redirecting pucks into the back or the net or making it extremely hard for the opposing goaltender to see around him.
He’s still doing that now but just not producing offensively. He’s not producing anywhere near the level he was early on in the season for the Flyers.
The 6’3″, 217 lb forward is signed through the 2022-2023 season. He signed a five-year, $35 million dollar contract with the Flyers back in 2018.
His cap hit for the 2020-2021 season is $7 million. According to capfriendly.com, that’s 8.6% of the teams current cap hit.
The Flyers have three options when it comes to what to do with van Riemsdyk following this season.
One, they can always just let it play out. He’d be apart of the Flyers for two more seasons if that’s the route they decide to go.
Second, with the expansion draft right around the corner, the Flyers could always choose to expose van Riemsdyk in hopes that the Seattle Kraken would pick him up.
Finally, they could try and trade him in the offseason. That’s no easy feat though. The Flyers could very well end up having to eat a chunk of van Riemsdyk’s salary in order to find a trading partner.
The bottom line is that consistently producing offensively has not come easy for van Riemsdyk. He’s a streaky kind of player. He’s either really hot or he’s really cold.
There just doesn’t seem to be a middle for him.
