Caleb Weiler
For most of the season, Dave Hakstol has paired Ivan Provorov with Andrew MacDonald. Yes, the same Andrew MacDonald that spent the start of the 2015-2016 season with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The 30-year-old defenseman played 43 games for the Phantoms, posting 31 assists and 5 goals for a total of 36 points. After spending the beginning half of the season on the farm, MacDonald was called up by general manager Ron Hextall and has played 28 games with the big club, posting seven assists and one measly goal.
Bad turnover from Andrew MacDonald leads to a Stars goal pic.twitter.com/yF0aH3pgh6
— Broad Street Hockey (@BroadStHockey) December 17, 2016
When the Paul Holmgren-led Flyers traded for MacDonald in the middle of the 2014-15 season, the book on him was that he could block shots and be a good stay at home defenseman. After Holmgren, the general manager at the time of the trade, extended MacDonald to a six-year, $30 million extension, that proved not to be the case.
Ever since coming to the Flyers, MacDonald has found himself in and out of the lineup and up and down from the AHL to the NHL.
On an already porous Flyers defense, MacDonald has been the standout defenseman that just never fits in, and the advanced statistics back it up. MacDonald has always had a relative-corsi-percentage in the negatives, this season alone he stands at -4.9% which means that the other team controls the puck more often when MacDonald is on the ice. He also has a relative-fenwick-percentage of -4.4% which means that opponents are outshooting the Flyers when MacDonald is on the ice.
Ban ? Andrew ? MacDonald ? Forever pic.twitter.com/KxBvsrnZqG
— Broad Street Hockey (@BroadStHockey) January 11, 2017
Not only do the advanced statistics show that MacDonald is not capable of holding his own weight, but he doesn’t pass the “eye test” either. MacDonald has given the puck away 24 times this year, but has only been able to take it away from opposing players twice. While Radko Gudas, Shayne Gostisbehere and Provorov have more giveaways than MacDonald up to this point in the season they all have taken the puck away 10+ times from the opponent making up for their mistakes.
It is time for Hakstol to shake things up on defense just like he has on offense. Provorov, as great as he is, cannot make MacDonald a better player, as much as Hakstol wills it.
While Gostisbehere has not been scoring at the same pace from last year, he is driving play posting positive percentages for both Corsi and Fenwick, maybe it is time to give the two young guns a shot to play together to see if they can turn the Flyers fortunes around, because right now, The MacDonald Experiment is not working.
Here is your power hour of Andrew MacDonald turnovers pic.twitter.com/DPrmcIEskb
— Joe Pergola (@JoeyPierogies) October 28, 2016