Travis Sanheim

At 28 years old, Travis Sanheim has this physical status:

Playing career

The Western Hockey League's (WHL) selected Sanheim in the ninth round, 177th overall, of the 2011 WHL Bantam Draft. He debuted with the team in 2013-14 and had a difficult adjustment period, aided by a late expansion spurt that limited Sanheim to only three points in his first 21 games of the season. After an injury to captain Jaynen Rissling, he found his feet when paired defensively with Ben Thomas and started playing time in December. Sanheim had 29 points and a +25 plus-minus through 67 junior ice hockey games by the end of his rookie season. The Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League (NHL) selected Sanheim in the first round, 17th overall, of the 2014 NHL Entry Draft.

Sanheim spent both the Flyers' rookie and general training camps in 2014 and appeared in one preseason game before returning to Calgary for the 2014–15 WHL season. He also signed an entry-level deal with Philadelphia right before the WHL and NHL seasons began. His sophomore season in the WHL was a success, with 15 goals and 65 points in 67 games. Despite leading defensemen with 39 points in the first 41 games of the season, Sanheim found more success in January when he was paired with Jake Bean, another offensively-minded defenseman. Sanheim and Bean were both primary scorers and penalty killers for a team that often lacked elite forwards for the remainder of their respective junior hockey careers. Sanheim defeated the Medicine Hat Tigers in the game-winning, double-overtime goal, propelling them into the Ed Chynoweth Cup's Eastern Conference Finals. In five games of the conference finals, the Brandon Wheat Kings defeated the Hitmen.

Sanheim, a veteran presence for Calgary after a number of the Hitmen's playoff core left the team for the NHL early in the 2015–16 season, was a veteran presence for the team. Through the first 18 games of the season, he led all WHL defensemen in scoring with 22 points before suffering an upper-body injury in a game against the Prince Albert Raiders at the start of November. In a 4–3 overtime loss to the Regina Pats, he missed nearly the entire month. He returned on November 30 with a goal and an assist. Sanheim skipped another stretch of games at the start of the calendar year, when he was representing Canada at the 2016 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships. In his absence, Calgary named Taylor, his twin brother, as a temporary substitute captain. Despite missing a total of 15 regular season games, Sanheim finished his final season of junior hockey with 15 goals and 68 points, and he led all Canadian Hockey League (CHL) defensemen in points per game. In the first round of the 2016 WHL playoffs, Sanheim's junior hockey career came to an end.

Sanheim joined the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, the Flyers' American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, for the final stretch of the 2015–16 season after the Hitmen's season concluded. He appeared in four games for the Phantoms, scoring three points in the process. Sanheim and his defensive partner Samuel Morin worked with assistant coach Kerry Huffman in order to raise the physical aspect of their game for an older, more diverse group of skaters. Although Sanheim's offensive skills were already strong from his youth, his time with Huffman aided Sanheim in his overall game. He did not score a single point until December, but Sanheim had both scored ten goals and 29 points, resulting in a +7 plus-minus. In 76 AHL games, he had ten goals and 37 points. T. J. Brennan, the Phantoms' main power play defenseman, was at full throttle for all but one of these objectives.

Sanheim made Philadelphia's last roster roster out of training camp and began the 2017-18 season in the NHL. He scored his first NHL goal in his 28th NHL game on December 14, 2017 to help the Flyers beat the Buffalo Sabres 2–1. On January 22, 2018, he was reassigned to Philadelphia's American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, but the Lehigh Valley Phantoms were later suspended on March 9 due to a injury to Robert Hägg. During the 2018 playoffs, Sanheim made his Stanley Cup playoff debut against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round. In a 5–1 loss to the Penguins on April 15, he scored his first career playoff goal. The Flyers lost in six games to the Penguins, after which Sanheim was loaned to the Phantoms to help them with their 2018 Calder Cup playoffs.

Sanheim also agreed to a new two-year, $6.5 million deal on June 24, 2019.

Sanheim and his defensive mate Philippe Myers were two of the young Flyers to fail in the protracted 2020–21 season, when Philadelphia lost 25-23-8. When Alain Vigneault struggled to find a solid top pairing for Ivan Provorov, the loss of veteran presence in Matt Niskanen particularly harmed many of the team's young defenders. During a team outbreak in February, Sanheim was the first Flyer to test positive for the COVID-19 virus. Despite the fact that he did not have any acute signs, he was compelled to withdraw from February 7 to 18. Sanheim's 2020-21 season was the worst of his career so far, with only three goals, 15 points, and a –22 rating while skating in just one of the 56 games during the shortened season. Despite the fact that Sanheim's defensive record was similar to years past, his mistakes during the 2020-21 season were much more costly, with his turnovers and positioning leading more often to goals against than they did earlier in his NHL career.

On August 21, Sanheim, a restricted free agent entering the 2021–22 season, successfully escaped labor arbitration, even after he signed a two-year contract extension that had an average annual value of $4.675 million. Rasmus Ristolainen, Sanheim's new defensive line starter after Myers was traded to the Nashville Predators over the summer, was the Flyers' second defensive line.

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