Top Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim might be the best rearguard on his team, but his ranking amongst his peers around the NHL isn't nearly as flattering.
In Bleacher Report's latest ranking of each NHL team's best defenseman, Sanheim, 29, representing the Flyers, ranked just 29th, ahead of only the likes of Dmitry Orlov (32nd, San Jose), Alex Vlasic (31st, Chicago), and Adam Pelech (30th, New York Islanders).
Even more curious is that names like Erik Karlsson, Morgan Rielly, Vince Dunn, and Cam Fowler were ahead of Sanheim, and many would argue that Fowler isn't even the best defensemen on his team.
That honor belongs to hulking right-shot defenseman Colton Parayko, who represented Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off last winter alongside Sanheim and new Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet.
Rielly, and Karlsson, especially, are shadows of the players they once were, reaching the peaks of their offensive production seasons ago.
Sanheim, too, had a down year offensively, but much of that can be attributed to a lack of power play time, lots of difficult defensive minutes, and an overall lackluster Flyers team that failed time and time again to live up to expectations, even after the surprise addition of Matvei Michkov last summer.
The rangy Flyers defenseman was always going to be a good No. 2 or great No. 3 on a Stanley Cup contender, which makes him no different than a Dunn, a Parayko, or even a Dougie Hamilton.
But, given how poor the Flyers were for swaths of last season, Sanheim unfortunately did not receive the respect he's earned over the last few seasons.
It's not the first instance of such a snub this offseason, either.
Just a few days prior, Bleacher Report also bizarrely excluded top Flyers prospect Porter Martone from their list of the 10 most exciting prospects playing in the NCAA this upcoming season.
Based on first-hand knowledge, this will only be added motivation for a scrappy Flyers team looking to wash away a bad 2024-25 season, but the unusually strong disrespect has been a strange trend to follow this month.
Sanheim scored eight goals, 22 assists, and 30 points for the Flyers last season, posting a -6 rating while averaging a career-high 24:30 of ice time.
