Ivan Provorov’s Flyers fit is no longer comfortable but an offseason trade isn’t certain

In the 2021 offseason, one of the major questions facing the Philadelphia Flyers was how they planned to get Ivan Provorov the quality partner that he so clearly lacked.

In the summer of 2022, the question shifted to whether Provorov’s continued underwhelming play was actually the result of partner instability or if he was simply stagnating and even regressing as a player.

Now, entering the 2023 offseason, a new question has arisen: Does Provorov still have a place on a rebuilding Flyers club? Should he have a place?

Only a few years ago, Provorov was essentially untouchable. The No. 7 selection in 2015, Provorov quickly endeared himself to the fan base via his rapid transition to a top-four — and then top-pair — role at 20, and then by his willingness to gut it out through injuries and take on tough minutes without complaints. It culminated in a stellar 2019-20 campaign that appeared to solidify Provorov’s status as one of the best up-and-coming defensemen in the NHL — and a player who was destined to be a Flyers lifer.

Provorov’s fall since that peak has mirrored that of his club. Three consecutive “down” seasons raise the troubling possibility that they aren’t down seasons at all, and simply the new normal for the 26-year-old. Add in an increasingly uncomfortable situation between team and player — culminating in trade rumors in January — and it’s little surprise that Provorov is expected to be made available to other teams this summer.

Will he still be on the Flyers come training camp in September? That’s the biggest question left.

When the 2022-23 campaign kicked off, Provorov was in his usual spot at the top of the defense depth chart. John Tortorella had talked a big game at camp to Provorov about making him earn his much-coveted spot on the power play (which had been stripped from him late in the previous season by interim coach Mike Yeo), but by the end of October, Provorov was back on PP2 and getting 25 minutes a game in all situations.

The first month of the season went well for Provorov. He had five points in his first five games, held a solid plus-4 plus/minus and seemed to be making a fan of his demanding new coach. Sure, his underlying five-on-five metrics stunk (41.36 percent on-ice expected goal share), but he was adapting to a new partner — offensive defenseman Tony DeAngelo — which surely was going to require some adjustment, given DeAngelo’s unique style of play. On the whole, Provorov was off to a solid start.

November is when the wheels started to come off, and in December the car crashed into a tree.

The Flyers, of course, collapsed in November, winning just three of 15 games. Provorov’s play wasn’t helping arrest the slide. His underlying metrics (42.36 percent xGF%) were still poor, except now, Provorov and DeAngelo were actually getting gashed for goals against due to their inability to win the scoring chance battle; Carter Hart wasn’t bailing them out anymore. The duo was separated by the end of the month, but it didn’t help Provorov much. His results cratered in December — a 39.95 percent xG share, 23.76 percent on-ice goals share and a measly two points. By the middle of the month, Tortorella and assistant coach Rocky Thompson had yanked Provorov off the power play; he would receive less than 20 more PP minutes over the season’s final 51 contests.

By Dec. 31, Provorov had 13 points in 37 games, an awful 41.31 percent on-ice xG share and was on the ice at five-on-five for 31 goals by Flyers opponents and just 23 by the Flyers. It was as ugly a first half as it gets.

When it comes to Provorov, January will be remembered by many more for his decision on Jan. 17 to sit out warmups rather than wear a Pride jersey with his teammates on the team’s Pride Night than his on-ice play. But Provorov’s play did undeniably improve in January. He broke a 25-game goalless drought against Arizona on Jan. 5 and started popping up on the scoresheet more and more often. A budding partnership with youngster Cam York helped significantly, turning around Provorov’s underlying five-on-five metrics and helping him to spend more time with the puck and less defending. It was the best Provorov had played all year.

The improvement didn’t hold, though, even after Tortorella and Thompson gave him back some of his power play minutes in February and March. Provorov would score just eight points in 31 games after the All-Star break, and the partnership with York began to show cracks as well, particularly in the defensive zone. In the end, Provorov would get his fourth Barry Ashbee Trophy (given to the team’s best defenseman) but it was a hollow honor given the quality of his competition and his poor end-of-season results. Provorov finished with just 27 points, his lowest point-per-game rate since 2018-19. His minus-17 was second-worst on the defense — to DeAngelo, who was also the only Flyers defenseman to perform worse by xG rates. And no Philadelphia blueliner ended up with a worse on-ice goal differential at five-on-five: 76 goals against and 56 for.

There was no bounce-back to be found here, no saving of Provorov via the acquisition of DeAngelo or the hiring of a new coaching staff. For the third consecutive season, Provorov undeniably underwhelmed.

Strengths and weaknesses

Provorov might be three years removed from the last time he delivered a truly impressive statistical season. But that doesn’t mean he lacks strengths as a player. In fact, from a scouting standpoint, Provorov isn’t at all lacking tools. His results may have dipped, but the core of an impact top-four NHL defenseman remains.

For starters, Provorov remains a strong skater — not a burner, but one with real smoothness who rarely (if ever) gets beaten on the rush due to sheer speed. Provorov also remains in exceptional physical shape, taking on heavy minutes and never missing a game. Seriously — his only missed NHL games of his career (three) were the result of a positive COVID-19 test, not an injury. Durability and fitness will never be in question for Provorov as he remains in his prime.

He also does flash high-end skill, both in the form of his legitimately plus wrist shot and his occasional up-ice jaunts turned into highlight reel goals. His overtime goal against Montreal in 2019-20 still remains probably his most impressive, but his ridiculous tally in Game 82 to end the 2022-23 season proved that the player who dangled his way through the Canadiens three and a half years ago is still in there somewhere.

Provorov is a good puck mover — not an elite one, but one who consistently grades out well by zone exit microstats — and historically solid defensively, due to natural instincts, physicality, and willingness to cover the high-traffic areas like the corners and net front. There remain a lot of reasons to like Provorov the player and his plausible upside.

Provorov’s biggest weakness? It largely stems back to a simple fact: his offensive game has never developed past underwhelming.

It starts with his scoring. Early in his career, Provorov looked to be on track to develop into a legitimate point producer at five-on-five. Those days are long gone — now, it’s been four consecutive seasons in which he’s scored like a third-pair blueliner by Points/60.

Nor has he been able to make up for it on the power play. In fact, there have been 92 NHL defensemen who have skated for at least 400 minutes on the power play since Provorov entered the league in 2016-17. When it comes to Points scored per 60 minutes on the PP among that group, Provorov ranks … 92nd. There’s a legitimate case to be made that he’s been the worst PP defenseman in the NHL over a large sample, and the Flyers had every justification to pull him out of those duties.

Offensively, Provorov just doesn’t provide much. And the result is that he really doesn’t drive play at even strength, either.

Play-driving, at its core, is a two-part equation built on two separate questions.

• Do you help your team create offense?
• Do you help your team prevent opponents from creating offense?

The best play-driving defensemen, of course, are either good at both (think Adam Fox and Victor Hedman) or so good at one to make up for deficiencies in the other (Dougie Hamilton with offense, T.J. Brodie with defense). For Provorov, the offensive side of the equation never really came around — and now the defensive side is slipping, too.

All data courtesy of Evolving-Hockey’s RAPM model and even strength only. Note: it’s better for offensive impact to be positive, and defensive impact to be negative.

Provorov got close to being a truly balanced defenseman in 2019-20, when he cracked the 50th percentile in both and his offensive impact was in its fourth consecutive season of improvement. Since then, everything has declined, culminating in his disastrous (by the numbers) performance in 2022-23.

This timeline, in fairness, is probably the best statistical case for the “it’s the partners’ fault” argument. After all, 2019-20 was the last time Provorov had anything resembling a high-end partner on the top pair (Matt Niskanen). Since then, it’s been failure after failure — Philippe Myers, Justin Braun, Ryan Ellis, DeAngelo — in trying to get him one. That said, the RAPM model used above does do its best to account for partner quality and on-ice usage, and at the very least, Provorov hasn’t been elevating the play of his partners, which true impact defensemen tend to do.

In truth, by both the numbers and the eye test, Provorov’s steady rise has turned into a rapid regression over the past three seasons. What remains as selling points are good physical tools and the hope that some type of outside change gets him back on his pre-2020-21 trajectory.

Fit and future in Philadelphia

The Flyers have tried outside change in the form of new partners and new coaches. So far, they haven’t been able to find the right formula.

Might another team have more luck? Is Provorov’s fit in Philadelphia just not there anymore?

To be clear, I’ve never heard that Provorov has formally requested a trade. That said, even merely going by his public statements, it’s not difficult to read between the lines.

For starters, it’s pretty clear that the hyper-competitive Provorov isn’t exactly itching to spend the rest of his 20s toiling for a team committed to a rebuild. While most of his teammates on exit interview day expressed a clear-cut desire to stick it out and accelerate the timeline, Provorov came off as much more lukewarm and weary of it all.

“That’s definitely not exactly what you want to hear because I feel like I came into a rebuild, we had one good year, the bubble year that was also kind of paused – we were going into the pause on a nine-game winning streak, or it was just snapped, I think. Then after that, things went sideways, and we tried to quick fix that didn’t work,” he said. “I wouldn’t say it’s the most positive news you can hear, but there’s a bright future here, and there’s a lot of great players that can keep growing. Obviously, it depends on how quick everybody gets better and how quickly the team game gets better. I think that’s what determines the length of the rebuild.”

Nor did he come off as particularly enthusiastic about the head coach.

“I’m still the player, he’s still the coach,” Provorov said regarding his relationship with Tortorella. “Obviously, there’s things you’re not going to agree upon, but if both people put an effort to come to a solution, I think you can and that’s how kind of our year went. We’re going to continue to keep getting on the same page. Obviously, there’s going to be things that come up that we probably are not going to agree on. But like I said, his job is to coach the best way that he can, and my job is to play the best way that I can.”

The removal of power play time from Provorov’s plate is almost certainly a sticking point between the two. But my read is that it goes beyond that. Tortorella believes that Provorov is best suited to fully embrace his status as a defense-centric defenseman, essentially playing into his biggest statistical strength from his early seasons. Provorov disagrees, very much still believing in his ability to be an impact offensive player as well.

That disconnect isn’t going anywhere, unless Provorov takes a big late-20s leap in terms of his offensive results.

And then, there’s Provorov’s fit in the Flyers’ locker room.

The politics of Provorov’s Pride Night decision really don’t need to be rehashed here. In addition, my guess is that — right or wrong — it’s not going to affect his leaguewide trade value much, especially after other players took the same stance that he did. My bet is that most teams will focus more on their view of his talent than his religious beliefs.

The real importance of it here comes in terms of how it was received in the room. Spoiler alert: not well.

Even before Pride Night, Provorov wasn’t exactly Mr. Popularity with his teammates. The tension in 2021-22 — driven in part by a perceived lack of accountability for on-ice mistakes on Provorov’s part — was real. It’s worth remembering that every other player on the team did wear the warmup jersey, and that’s not because every player would consider himself an LGBTQ+ advocate. It’s because the cause mattered a lot to specific players — namely James van Riemsdyk and de facto captain Scott Laughton — and players who otherwise might not have cared wanted to support them. Provorov’s decision was understandably taken as a slight by the LGBTQ+ community, but it also played as a slight to the teammates in the room who had put a significant amount of time and effort into the evening. Given the existing tension there, Provorov’s decision didn’t help things.

That’s not to say Provorov was frozen out. I’ve still seen and heard him joking and laughing with teammates on the ice and in the locker room. He’s served as a mentor to Egor Zamula, and texted York last season in support after he was sent down. Provorov’s dedication to the game is also universally respected in the room. It’s not a requirement that Provorov be best friends with all of his teammates. That said, comradery also is not going to serve as an extra motivating factor for Provorov in terms of wanting to stay in Philadelphia after his contract expires in two seasons, especially adding in the rebuild factor and the Torts factor.

Even if Provorov doesn’t love it in Philly, he’s not the type to rock the boat by clearly dogging it on the ice or ignoring the orders of coaches. That cuts down on the urgency for the new Philadelphia front office to make a trade right now. That said, given all the factors involved, it’s very difficult to imagine Provorov re-signing in Philadelphia come the summer of 2025 when his contract expires. This isn’t a new development; I was told by a Flyers source last winter that part of the reasoning behind re-upping Travis Sanheim was because they believed it was unlikely that Provorov would be sticking around long-term. Provorov is likely on his way out — it’s less a matter of if, and more a matter of when, unless circumstances change dramatically.

Plausible trade value

Which brings us to the logical follow-up question: if Provorov was traded this summer, what would he bring back in a deal?

Unfortunately, the answer is largely unsatisfying. Not because Provorov definitely won’t bring back a haul — it’s because the defenseman trade market frankly makes little sense, at least in terms of statistical evaluation. Basically, it’s hard to predict what Provorov would garner in a trade, because it really depends on whether a few teams convince themselves that he’s better than his recent stats imply.

The good news? That’s happened quite a lot in recent years.

So yes, Provorov’s recent work pales in comparison to what Jakob Chychrun provided Arizona in the three years before he was moved, which means Provorov should bring back a lot less than Chychrun did (a first-rounder and two seconds), right? Except Rasmus Ristolainen is right around where Provorov is now — and didn’t have nearly the same statistical high points as Provorov’s peak — yet brought back a similar package to Chychrun. Mattias Ekholm (first, fourth) may blow Provorov away statistically, but Seth Jones (two firsts and a second) didn’t, and he garnered even more.

Much of defenseman valuation in the current NHL is based on front office perception of talent and upside, and not actual results. Sure, some teams live and die by the numbers, and most seem to pay a fair amount of attention to them when it comes to forwards. For blueliners, however, it appears to be done a lot more by personal gut feel and scouting.

So coming up with statistical comparables for Provorov is a fool’s errand. The more relevant question is whether there are any GMs out there who think Provorov can be their Hampus Lindholm — a talented bounce-back candidate who will thrive in a new environment — and aren’t scared away by his recent results. Or their Jones — a physically gifted blueliner who the stats simply don’t get. In essence, they see what Provorov could be, not what he currently is.

If new GM Daniel Briere can find a few of those GMs, a trade seems likely. The market for effective top-four blueliners has been set pretty clearly at a first-round pick and an extra piece or two, and my guess is that Briere would accept such an offer if it’s in line with the returns that players like Lindholm, Ekholm and Chychrun recently garnered.

If not? Well, Provorov just might have yet another chance to halt his multiple-season decline while remaining in orange and black.

(Photo: Kyle Ross / USA Today)