Philadelphia Flyers 2021-22 season review: Ivan Provorov
It really wasn’t long ago that Ivan Provorov was universally viewed as one of the true shining stars on the Philadelphia Flyers, a team generally viewed to be on the rise.
His selection at No. 7 in 2015 by former general manager Ron Hextall was hailed as a shrewd choice, a rapid infusion of a legitimate blue-chip defenseman prospect into a system in desperate need of one without legitimate question marks. He cruised to an NHL roster spot in just his second training camp with the Flyers and was on the top pair by the second month of the season. By his sophomore season, he had reached the 0.5 point per game mark — no easy feat for a blueliner — and by Season 4, he was the recipient of Norris Trophy votes.
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Sure, there were a few scattered cries from analytics-centric writers that Provorov was a bit overrated. But he was still young; there was more than enough time for Provorov to silence even those few remaining doubters as well. By 2020, both fans and the organization believed that Provorov was on track to establish himself as one of the NHL’s better defensemen and fully morph into a franchise cornerstone.
The last two seasons of Provorov’s career have upended that narrative.
It’s not necessarily that Provorov has been terrible. He’s still taking on heavy minutes and tough matchups, still scoring a respectable amount of points, still showing far more talent than the bulk of the Philadelphia blue line corps. But for two consecutive seasons, something has been missing in Provorov’s game — the dominant games have been less frequent, the glaring mistakes more so, the goals and assists less consistent. Perhaps it all can be explained by the fact he’s lacked a viable top-pair quality partner since 2019-20. But what if his problems run deeper? That’s the question the Flyers will need to answer this summer.

In the Flyers’ defense, it’s not like they ignored the “get Provorov a good partner” problem in the wake of the 2020-21 debacle. Matt Niskanen’s surprise retirement after the 2020 bubble clearly threw the front office for a loop, and the ultimate decision in the immediate aftermath of his departure was to not replace him at all, banking largely on the further development of Philippe Myers into a legitimate right-handed top-pair complement to Provorov. That didn’t work, and in the summer of 2021, general manager Chuck Fletcher shipped Myers (along with 2017 No. 2 pick Nolan Patrick) to Nashville to acquire Ryan Ellis, the presumptive solution to the glaring hole at 1RD.
Instead, they got four games out of Ellis.
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The Provorov-Ellis pairing showed early potential, particularly during preseason. But Ellis’ pelvic injury put a rapid end to that, forcing then-head coach Alain Vigneault to move Justin Braun up from the third pair to play alongside Provorov.
In the early going, Provorov didn’t seem too affected by the switch. He wasn’t producing much offense, but his defensive game was on point. When October ended, the Flyers had collected a strong 52.52 percent of the expected goals at five-on-five with Provorov on the ice and a horrid 43.61 percent when he sat. Provorov’s pair — and the Flyers’ top of the lineup in general — was keeping the team afloat.
But the longer Provorov spent away from Ellis, the more his game started to suffer. Provorov’s underlying results cratered with those of the rest of the team (with the exception of the Travis Sanheim and Rasmus Ristolainen pair, which continued to hold its own) in November and December in the weeks leading up to Vigneault’s ouster. Then, in early January, Provorov suffered another major disappointment — after testing positive for COVID-19, he was forced to miss three games, the first three regular season games he had ever missed in his NHL career. It ended his consecutive games streak at 403.
But that wouldn’t be the worst section of his season.
Upon returning from the All-Star break in early February, Provorov’s game became plagued with glaring turnovers and errors. Provorov’s mistakes weren’t just obvious; they were coming at the worst possible times, legitimately handing games to opponents.
The ultimate result? Against Florida on March 10, Provorov was pulled off the Flyers’ power play for the first time in years. And while the removal did not prove permanent — he would be added back into the PP mix in late March — it was a drastic step given the coaching staff’s longtime reticence to yank him from those duties. It was a decision that was noticed by everyone.
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To Provorov’s credit, he did turn his play around, to a degree. His work alongside rookies Cam York and Ronnie Attard — after Braun was moved on deadline day — was solid, and he scored 11 points across 15 April games, easily his best offensive showing of the season. But that down stretch — which lasted about a month and a half — cast a shadow on his season, both in the eyes of the fan base and, in fairness, in the media.
So on exit interview day, Provorov made it clear he disagreed with the widespread perception of his season when asked for his self-evaluation of it.
“I mean, no matter what I say, you guys are gonna, you know, give me your own grades,” he said with a smirk. “It doesn’t matter. You’re all experts in hockey, so you’re going to give me your all, you know, super experienced grades. So I don’t think my opinion matters too much to you guys.”
Diving into Provorov’s February and March
The negative view of Provorov’s season, as noted, largely stemmed from his work in February and March. That’s when regular critiques of his play began popping up across social media and in articles, and what led the Flyers’ coaching staff to remove him from the power play, a spot that he had locked down for years.
So let’s dive into the timeline of that pivotal part of Provorov’s season. It really was an 11-game run, from Feb. 9 against Detroit through March 8 against the Vegas Golden Knights.
During that stretch, Provorov was on the ice for 18 goals against across all situations. For reference, that pace would have had Provorov be witness to 134 goals against across 82 games — which would have been the highest total for an NHL defenseman in 2021-22 (Seth Jones and Brent Burns both were on the ice for 128 goals against). In other words … it’s a lot.
In defense of Provorov, not all of the goals against were solely his fault. In fact, by my tape review, not even half were. However, six goals against over an 11-game span that can be directly attributed to a major mistake on the part of one single player is not an insignificant number. And when two of them almost immediately led to game-changing late goals by the opposition? It’s even tougher to swallow.
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Provorov’s run began with a bad-luck goal against on Feb. 9, but one that always infuriates fans — the classic “off the defenseman’s skate and in.” In truth, most of the goals against at the beginning of this run saw Provorov be largely blameless or just plain unlucky. That changed on Feb. 17, however, when his brutal turnover in a 3-3 game to Carl Hagelin quickly led to Garnet Hathaway’s game-winner for the Capitals.
Five nights later, he had another tough game against the Blues, ending up on the ice for all four goals against, culminating with an awful turnover on an attempted pass to Keith Yandle with the net empty that led to St. Louis’ final goal. Was the outcome no longer in doubt at that point, given the score was already 3-1 St. Louis? Sure. Was it still a memorable mistake for all who watched the game? Of course. Which is how perceptions are born.
On Feb. 24, interim head coach Mike Yeo addressed Provorov’s increasing struggles, presenting his own theory for them: Provorov was trying to do too much.
“First of all, I think his game was really going quite well (before), to be honest with you,” Yeo said. “I look at the last two, three games, going back to probably the Washington game, I thought the Washington game he played a really strong game, and then he had a big mistake at the end of the game. I think with Ivan, from my time that I’ve seen him here, he’s a guy that takes an awful lot of pride in winning and doing the job well. When the team’s not doing well, he seems to really put that on his back. And unfortunately, one thing that happens with that is he tries to win the game for us every time he’s out on the ice. Really, what we need from him is just to go out and be himself. If you try to do too much, you put yourself in a bad position. Next thing you know, you’re making mistakes that maybe you’re not typically making. And that’s the sense that I get right now.”
Through Yeo’s comments, he was making two things clear. First, he had Provorov’s back. But second, yes, Provorov was indeed not at his best. And that continued on March 3 against the Minnesota Wild. Provorov was on the ice for three goals against. On the first two Wild goals, a case could be made that Provorov was at fault, but others deserved blame as well. His unpressured turnover on a neutral zone regroup, however? Not so much.
The next day, Provorov spoke to the media, in the wake of Yeo’s legitimately furious postgame comments directed at the team as a whole, and a next-morning private meeting. But if anyone was expecting a mea culpa from Provorov, that’s not exactly what they got when he was asked about the plays in question that led to those goals against.
“I think the last few games, we haven’t really been on the same page when it comes to the neutral zone, getting out of the zone,” Provorov said. “I think right now the picture of the game at times looks different for everyone in their own head. So I think it’s more of not being on the same page, and not seeing the game the same way, than guys are playing bad or making uncharacteristic mistakes.”
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Provorov continued.
“Obviously, we’ve got to be better, we’ve got to find a way to get on the same page,” he said. “At times, it means simplify the game. You just have to find a way to accept it. And at times, when you see the game in a creative way, it’s hard to almost just flip it out, get it out, but sometimes it is the play and sometimes it’s what you have to do.”
It’s not that what Provorov said was necessarily wrong. But questioning the concept that anyone — namely, himself — was making uncharacteristic mistakes after multiple games where even the head coach acknowledged that he was making uncharacteristic mistakes was of course going to raise eyebrows. Add in the “when you see the game in a creative way” comment, and it’s not hard to imagine how those comments could be interpreted as passing the buck a bit.
Four nights later, Provorov’s late delay-of-game penalty nearly cost the Flyers a 2-1 victory over the Golden Knights. Two nights after that, Provorov was pulled off the power play in Florida, with the decision standing as evidence that the coaches were seeing what fans were seeing — Provorov wasn’t playing up to par.
Some credit to Provorov, though. Following his PP demotion, his play took a positive turn, to the point where Yeo made sure to point out unprompted after a March 20 win against the New York Islanders that he felt No. 9 had played a stellar game. But it was this month-long run that, in the end, is what many remember as the defining part of Provorov’s 2021-22 campaign. And it wasn’t pretty.
Was Provorov’s season really that bad?
It’s tough to deny that the February/March run was filled with legitimate mistakes on the part of Provorov and on multiple occasions they occurred at key moments in games. But was his 2021-22 campaign really as horrid as fans tended to perceive it was?
In short, probably not.
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Even during the Feb. 9-March 8 run, it’s not like Provorov’s underlying metrics were terrible. The Flyers controlled 49.1 percent of the expected goals at five-on-five with Provorov on the ice; a rate actually better than his full-season share of 46.19 percent. Provorov’s public defensiveness wasn’t totally unjustified, he likely was delivering lots of quality shifts during this stretch. It’s just that when he was making mistakes, they tended to be very big ones, and they almost always were getting punished by the opposition.
As for Provorov’s full-season performance by advanced stats, yes, 46.19 percent isn’t that good at first glance. Players always want to be over 50 percent, meaning their team outchanced the opposition while they were on the ice. But this is where models like Evolving-Hockey’s RAPM — which try to strip away outside factors like quality of linemates, quality of competition and zone starts and come to a more complete evaluation of whether an individual player truly is having a positive on-ice impact at even strength. And per RAPM, Provorov still was having a beneficial impact on his teammates in 2021-22. In terms of his impact on xG differential, Provorov checked in at +0.023, and he helped his club to a +1.08 boost in terms of shot attempt differential as well.
Now, are these results great? Nah. Provorov finished in the 56th percentile among defensemen by xG impact, and the 64th percentile in shot attempt differential impact. But it’s also not bad. Per RAPM, it’s not like Provorov was actively hurting the Flyers at even strength when he skated, after accounting for his usage.
The biggest usage-related problem? His partner, Braun. Provorov, of course, was supposed to spend the year with Ellis, but injuries killed that plan. Instead, he spent 775 minutes at five-on-five with Braun, a solid defensive defenseman but not much of a puck-mover or offensive threat. The result? An ugly 44.85 percent xG share together, a truly awful rate for a “top” pair.
So why did the Flyers saddle Provorov with Braun? My guess is that it was more about limiting the damage than actually putting Provorov in the best possible position to succeed. The Provorov-Braun pairing may have gotten crushed from a play-driving standpoint, but it was more acceptably mediocre (47.2 percent) in terms of actual goal share. Compare that to the more skilled but higher-risk Provorov-York and Provorov-Sanheim duos, which drove play better but also proved more mistake-prone.

All statistics courtesy of Evolving-Hockey and adjusted for score and venue.
You can see the thinking here. Faced with lots of bad options, they went with what they felt was the least bad — a safe, low-upside top-pair that likely wasn’t the best for Provorov, but wouldn’t get totally embarrassed very often in tough usage.
That’s likely why Provorov graded out OK by all-encompassing models like RAPM. They accounted for the Braun factor and credited Provorov as a defenseman who did his best to hang on despite less than ideal usage and at least didn’t get crushed.
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Except, of course, in that stretch that featured legitimately painful mistakes.
Provorov’s actual issues
So it’s not that Provorov was truly as terrible in 2021-22 as some seem to believe. That would be an unfair criticism and one that Provorov was right to bristle against at the end of the season.
It’s that he wasn’t especially good, either. And it’s not like this is the first time that’s been the case.
Provorov has now played six NHL seasons, so let’s take a look at his performance in those seasons by Evolving-Hockey’s Goals Above Replacement model. Unsurprisingly, it lines up fairly well with the general perception of his performances.
First, we have his two legitimately very good seasons: 2017-18 (10.1 GAR) and 2019-20 (10.7 GAR). The first was his strong partnership with Shayne Gostisbehere which saw the duo morph into one of the league’s most effective pairings in the second half; the second was his season alongside Niskanen. Then, there’s his solid rookie season (5.6 GAR), when Provorov was a first-year player saddled with Andrew MacDonald yet still managed to impress, especially given his age. And finally, there are his three other seasons, when he checked in just a bit above zero-value. We have 2018-19, better known as “the year Hextall and Dave Hakstol got fired” (1.3 GAR); 2020-21 (2.4 GAR), which was the pandemic season; and then this year, when Provorov checked in at a career-low 1.1 GAR.
It’s important to note that Provorov has never delivered a negative-value season — he’s never been bad. But in half of his NHL campaigns, he’s basically been “just a guy” in his top-pair role. That’s not exactly a sterling track record.
Inconsistency isn’t Provorov’s only issue. By RAPM, he’s never once graded out as a positive chance suppressor on the penalty kill in a single season in his career. Over the last three seasons, Provorov has just seven primary assists at even strength — the second-lowest primary assist rate among NHL defensemen over that time span. And his power play production has been lacking as well — even accounting for his seven-goal, 16-point PP showing in 2019-20, Provorov ranks 58th out of 85 defensemen (with 150 minutes on the man advantage) in PP Points/60 since 2019-20. Take that season out of the equation and just look at the last two seasons, and Provorov is 64th out of 79 defensemen with at least 100 power play minutes.
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In summation: Provorov has only delivered truly standout seasons in two (maybe three, depending upon how highly one weights the “AMac effect”) of his six seasons. He doesn’t have a statistical track record of success on special teams. And he’s not much of a goal creator at even strength. Those are his legitimate issues as a player.
So what is Provorov now, and what happens next?
Let’s take stock now of Provorov, both the good and the bad — starting with the good.
And now, let’s weigh that against the bad.
First, he’s probably not a “driver” of a top-pair. Some might argue that this is an unfair stance, given his recent usage and quality of partner, and that’s a reasonable position to hold. That said, models like RAPM do their best to account for those factors, and even in Provorov’s best seasons, it’s viewed him as more of a “matches the quality of a good partner” type of defenseman, rather than one truly driving the bus. That shouldn’t be ignored.
Second, he doesn’t appear to be a high-end special teams player. He’s pretty clearly not a PP1 point option, which the Flyers themselves seemed to finally recognize this season. And the penalty kill has long struggled with him as the heavy-minutes anchor on defense — he’s surely not the only reason, but he hasn’t been the solution, either.
And finally, despite his clear skill with the puck, Provorov appears to be more of a build-up passer who helps his team move up ice than a true creative distributor in the offensive zone. His low even strength primary assist totals hint as much, as do his underwhelming power play scoring results — even in 2019-20, his PP strength was scoring with his wrister, not racking up tons of assists.
So what is Provorov, accounting for both the good and the bad?
The hard truth is that there’s really nothing in his concrete statistical resume — beyond ice time — to make the argument that he’s a No. 1 quality defenseman on a contending NHL club. He doesn’t score like one. He doesn’t drive play like one. And he doesn’t thrive on special teams like one.
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Is Provorov a No. 2, then? Maybe! It’s difficult to know for sure, because the Flyers have never slotted him in next to a true No. 1. Niskanen and in-prime Gostisbehere were more like solid No. 2s in terms of quality in those seasons — neither of them were chasing down Norris Trophies. Ellis was going to be the closest to a No. 1 partner that Provorov ever had, but then he got hurt, and now it’s uncertain whether he’ll return at all or at what level he’ll be if he does return.
Is Provorov at least a No. 3 on a contending club? Probably. If he can hold his own from an even-strength standpoint while also taking on heavy minutes in a top-pair role, it stands to reason that he’d probably thrive on a second pair. No. 3 defensemen on their clubs’ depth charts also aren’t locked into PP roles (just ask Sanheim), nor are they asked to carry the team’s penalty kill. So at minimum, Provorov is probably at least No. 3 quality.
Which leads us to the big question facing the front office this summer when it comes to Provorov: is he a No. 2 or a No. 3?
Here’s why it’s so important. If Provorov is a true No. 2 — in other words, a legitimate top-pair defenseman who has simply been let down by the Flyers’ failures and incompetence over the past two seasons — then the focus has to simply be to finally get the guy some help. They tried with Ellis, to their credit. But they need to keep trying. Good organizations don’t put talented 25-year-old players in impossible situations and then give up on them when they invariably struggle in those situations.
If Provorov is actually a true-talent No. 3, however? Then things become more complicated. After all, Sanheim has already proven that he is a legitimately good No. 3, and measurably outplayed Provorov statistically in 2021-22, winning the Barry Ashbee Trophy. If both are No. 3s, perhaps the team doesn’t need both?
And this is where the idea of trading Provorov comes into play.
Based on conversations with sources, my understanding is that Provorov wasn’t exactly the most popular player in the Flyers dressing room by the end of the season. His March 4 comments likely played into that, feeding into a perception that Provorov could be defensive at times when challenged on his mistakes, and not just to the media. But not every player on a team is going to be beloved and, in truth, there’s probably a place in the Philadelphia room for more of a “bad cop” willing to be critical at times, so long as that player can also handle criticism sent his way as well. It’s not like the famously “tight” Flyers room over the past few seasons has produced much in the way of wins, so choosing to trade Provorov solely for chemistry reasons seems foolish. A successful club will figure it out, especially with a player who possesses the kind of talent Provorov clearly does.
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A better justification to discuss a Provorov trade would be far more straightforward. Sanheim needs a new contract in the summer of 2023, and keeping both Provorov and Sanheim will be difficult, especially with Ristolainen’s $5.1 million cap hit already on the books. What could the Flyers get back for Provorov? And is it possible that Sanheim could do better in Provorov’s role (as No. 1 LD) than Provorov would do in Sanheim’s? It’s a fascinating question.
If the Flyers come to the conclusion that Provorov is just a very solid second-pair defenseman who they’ve been mistakenly using as a top-pair blueliner due to a lack of better options (and Provorov’s truly impressive stamina), a trade would make sense if they find that another club values him as a legitimate No. 1/2. Neither outcome is a foregone conclusion, of course. The Flyers may determine that they’ve done Provorov wrong over the past two seasons. Or maybe they’ll be open to moving him, but no club will pay their desired price.
In any case, the last two seasons have at least opened the door to the possibility that Provorov might not be the cornerstone piece he once appeared destined to become.
All statistics courtesy of Evolving-Hockey, Natural Stat Trick and Corey Sznajder.
(Photo: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)
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