Philadelphia Flyers: Is this the year Shayne Gostisbehere bounces back?

Is Gostisbehere about to fade away from the Philadelphia Flyers?

From 2015-18, there wasn’t a more popular player on the Philadelphia Flyers than Shayne Gostisbehere.

A plucky third-round pick with a pair of fantastic nicknames – ‘Ghost’ and the ‘Ghost Bear’ – Gostisbehere rapidly rose through the minor league ranks and caught on like few others as a rookie.

In only 64 games of action, Gostisbehere scored 17 points and 29 goals as the Flyers’ most offensive proficient defenseman, including a stretch where he scored a goal in a record-breaking 11 straight contests. Gostisbehere also became the first rookie in NHL history with four overtime goals scored and was honored for his efforts with a spot on the All-Rookie team and a second-place finish for the Calder Memorial Trophy.

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Though Gostisbehere regressed in limited action during his sophomore campaign, finishing out the season with an at-this-point career-low -21 +/-, the Union product earned a massive six-year, $27 million extension with the Flyers for an average annual value of $4.5 million and bounced back in 2017-18 with arguably his best campaign as a pro – scoring 13 goals and 52 assists in addition to 116 blocks, 53 hits, and 23 giveaways.

He was rewarded votes for the All-Star team, the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, and the James Norris Memorial Trophy and looked like the sort of long-term building block any NHL team would love to build around moving forward.

And then… nothing.

Since his 65 point performance at the tender age of 24, Gostisbehere has only recorded 49 points and spent stretches of the 2019-20 season off the ice entirely – or worse, back in Lehigh with the Phantoms. Though he remains among the highest-paid players on the Flyers’ roster, accounting for roughly six percent of the team’s salary cap for the 2020-21 season, it’s worth wondering if we’ve seen the last of Gostisbehere’s glory days in the City of Brotherly Love.

Well, if the team’s offseason activities are of any indication, the answer is probably yes.

With Ivan Provorov and Justin Braun locked in as the Flyers’ top two defenders once more going into the forthcoming season – whenever that may be – and a promising second unit pairing of Philippe Myers and Travis Sanheim to take this ice, Gostisbehere will be fighting for playing time with Mark Friedman, Egor Zamula, Robert Hagg, and intriguing bounce-back candidate Erik Gustafsson. Alternatively, the Flyers may attempt to move off of Gostisbehere’s contract altogether, shipping him off to some defenseman-hungry team like the Kings.

Or, hear me out, maybe Gostisbehere actually pulls it all back together and actually flashes some of his vintage flair for a team with serious playoff hopes.

As crazy as it may sound, Gostisbehere is theoretically the very same player who came up big for the Flyers what felt like a decade ago. He never suffered any sort of career-altering injury, and at 27-years-old, it’s not like the best days of his career are behind him. If Gostisbehere continues to struggle, then yeah, do what you have to do to get off of that contract, but why not give it one final go to see if he can recapture that two-way magic that made fans in the Delaware Vally shuffle into the Wells Fargo Center in Orange and Black number 53 jerseys?

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With three years left under contract, Shayne Gostisbehere should remain a fixture of the City of Brotherly Love for the foreseeable future. He’s got long-term stability, generational wealth, and a legion of fans still holding onto hope that he’ll get it all together; all he needs to do is prove to the Philadelphia Flyers once and for all that this last season and a half were aberrations, not the new normal. As a life-long Philly fan, I’m rooting for him, and not just because I’m one of those who were suckered into buying a number 53 jersey a few years back.

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