Former Flyers Defensemen Playing Like NHL's Best

The Philadelphia Flyers have not been strangers to making stunning trades over the last several years.

In a vacuum, there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious. It just hasn’t worked out for the Flyers lately.

On July 22, 2021, the Flyers traded Shayne Gostisbehere, a 2022 second-round pick, and a 2022 seventh-round pick to the Arizona Coyotes for… literally nothing.

Gostisbehere racked up 82 points in 134 games in the desert, joined Carolina for a 15-game playoff run in 2023, had a 56-point campaign with Detroit last year, and rejoined Carolina in the offseason this year.

More recently, the Flyers also traded Sean Walker and a 2026 fifth-round pick to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Ryan Johansen and a 2025 first-round pick.

Walker had a so-so playoff run with the Avs, but he, like Gostisbehere, joined the Hurricanes as a free agent this summer.

Joining forces on a Metropolitan Division rival, the two former Flyers defensemen have combined to become one of the NHL’s best defense pairings, according to the early numbers.

As a pair, Gostisbehere and Walker have an expected goals percentage (xG%) of an astounding 81.1%, which leads the league among defense pairings with at least 20 minutes played together, per Moneypuck.

So far, that beats out the likes of Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek (75.8%), K’Andre Miller and Adam Fox (69.8%), Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard (68.4%), Thomas Harley and Miro Heiskanen (60.5%), or more generally, your favorite defense pairing.

Of course, this is after only two games, but this was calculated well in advance by Hurricanes GM and former Flyers blogger Eric Tulsky and his head coach, Rod Brind’Amour.

Tulsky, a first-time NHL general manager, went ahead this summer and signed two of the league’s most analytically advanced defensemen in Gostisbehere and Walker.

Both players are extremely efficient in moving the puck, and Walker is the slightly better defensive player. That fits what the Hurricanes are trying to do to a tee.

As a Flyers fan, you can imagine that Tulsky, perhaps secretly, watched a great deal of those two in the Orange and Black during their respective tenures in Philadelphia, and he took advantage.