At long last, the Philadelphia Flyers — and the hockey world at large — finally got to see a full season of Wade Allison at the NHL level.
And in its aftermath — well, they’re not that much closer to determining what exactly Allison is.
After having multiple seasons of development marred by injury, Allison made it through camp unscathed last September and stuck with the big club all year. He showed flashes of if not brilliance, at least impact potential — particularly in January. But at the end of 2022-23, Allison had appeared in 60 NHL games, alongside mostly established top-nine scorers — and finished with just nine goals and 15 points.
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For most well-regarded prospects, a season like the one Allison just finished would go down as a decent first step, an inconsistent but promising campaign, with enough bright spots to warrant a longer look. But Allison’s situation is a bit different. Yes, the Flyers are a rebuilding club now and will be giving long looks to all of their prospects. But at 25, and in an organization chock-full of talented natural right wingers around his age and younger? The clock is ticking for Allison to make his mark.
In most season reviews, this would be where a start-to-finish recap of the player’s season would begin: his linemates, his usage, his hot streaks, his cold streaks, his injuries.
But when it comes to Allison, those details — with the possible exception of the final one, for reasons that will become apparent later — aren’t nearly as important as Allison’s final season results. So let’s just jump right into them.
Allison’s final stats from 2022-23 aren’t great. He got very little in the way of power play time (about 16 total minutes, which almost exclusively came in the season’s first few weeks) and essentially zero PK time, so that basically just leaves his work at even strength. It’s not that Allison’s results at evens grade him out as a full-fledged liability — it’s just that they’re altogether uninspiring.
From a scoring standpoint, Allison finished with 1.12 Points/60 at five-on-five, ranking him 357th out of the 413 NHL forwards who skated for at least 400 minutes last year. In other words, Allison graded out as a low-end fourth-liner in terms of point production, if we figure that there are 96 “first-liners” (32 teams and three first-liners per team) and so forth. He grades out a bit better in terms of play-driving, but not by a ton — his -0.005 impact on his team’s expected goal differential at even strength (per Evolving-Hockey’s RAPM formula) basically just means he didn’t help or hurt his linemates control play when he skated, which (unsurprisingly) ranked him right around the middle of NHL forwards — 233rd out of 414, or the 43rd percentile compared to his peers. Not awful, but nothing that dramatically moves the needle.
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Still, that’s not to say that Allison’s season didn’t come with positives.
For starters, he flashed legitimate goal scoring potential, both via the eye test and the numbers. There’s a reason why former Flyers GM Ron Hextall referred to Allison as a “big red train” in his post-firing news conference; Allison is a power forward at heart who thrives at attacking the high-danger areas with speed and fearlessness, both with the puck and without it. Allison goes to the areas where goals are scored, and he knows how to finish when he gets there.
The numbers back up the eyes. Allison averaged 0.72 goals per 60 minutes of five-on-five play (179th among NHL forwards) but even more promising was his 0.96 expected goal/60 rate, which ranked him way up in 61st. Allison created a lot of individual scoring chances in 2022-23, despite pretty minimal ice time.
In addition, he showed that he can play the kind of gritty, physical style that NHL teams so desperately want as part of a well-rounded forward corps. His 190 hits ranked second on the team, and after adjusting for ice time, no forward on the club blocked more shots at five-on-five than Allison. He even dropped the gloves twice. It’s not at all difficult to dream of Allison as a late-blooming, goal-scoring power winger.
So what were the problems? Why did those good things not add up to strong overall results?
Allison’s main issue from a scoring standpoint was simple: for all the potential he showed as a goal scorer, his playmaking was essentially nonexistent. Allison finished with just 0.40 assists per 60, which ranked him 393rd out of 413 NHL forwards, and it was even worse when just looking at primary assists. In nearly 750 minutes of ice time, Allison produced just one primary assist on a teammate’s goal, ranking him 407th by primary assists per 60.
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It wasn’t just bad luck, either — Corey Sznajder’s manually tracked metrics back up the narrative that Allison just wasn’t an effective passer at all in 2022-23. If he wasn’t creating the chance or goal while he was on the ice, it wasn’t getting created. Nor can one blame quality of linemates — his most frequent ones were Scott Laughton, Kevin Hayes, Noah Cates, James van Riemsdyk, Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee. Sure, he didn’t have much time next to Owen Tippett or Travis Konecny, but we’re not talking about the types of linemates that Frost got over the first two and a half months of the season. Allison had help. He just wasn’t able to return the favor to them.
Allison’s play-driving decline was also a legitimate disappointment. In 2020-21, during his 14-game audition with the big club, Allison was an advanced stat monster. His +0.155 xG isolated impact would have ranked him in the 75th percentile among NHL qualifying NHL forwards, and his 60.20 percent xG For percentage was eye-popping for such an underwhelming Flyers’ club. Over his first full NHL season, however? He was down in the 45th percentile and posted a 48.52 percent raw on-ice rate, largely because of newly apparent defensive weaknesses that hadn’t shown in 2020-21. It’s an area in need of improvement.
And then, of course, there are the injuries.
Tortorella and “he’s always hurt”
Flyers head coach John Tortorella had his fair share of memorable news conferences in his first year running the show. But his availability on March 16 was particularly notable, mainly for its sheer ridiculousness.
And that ridiculousness was directed at one player: Wade Allison.
Over the course of a 10-minute post-practice availability — after being asked about Allison in the very first question of the session — Tortorella dropped a recurring refrain a whopping 10 times.
He’s always hurt.
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“It’s just … you ask me about Ally, the first thought in my head: he’s always hurt,” he said. “I can’t help but think that. Because he’s always hurt.”
It was the epitome of a “shots fired” declaration, playing right into the most negative evaluations of his past, present and future as a player.
Allison’s injury history is, of course, a checkered one. Pre-draft, he had little in the way of issues, but that changed quickly after he enrolled at Western Michigan. Allison tore his ACL midway through what to that point had been a breakout sophomore season, and while he did return for his junior year, he was by his own admission severely hampered, only even approaching 100 percent effectiveness well into his senior campaign. Allison signed his ELC with the Flyers in the summer of 2020, but his first pro season was put on hold for an extra two months due to a February ankle surgery; his first pro game didn’t come until March 14. Allison made quick work of the AHL and earned that impressive 14-game call-up, which put him in prime position to secure an NHL roster spot out of camp in 2021-22 — until he suffered an ugly high-ankle sprain in a September rookie game, an injury that kept him out until December. Allison ultimately appeared in just one NHL game that year.
But Tortorella was around for none of that, even if he surely received reports on Allison’s past when he took the job. Under Tortorella, Allison appeared in 60 of 82 games. But he did suffer three injuries. First, there was an oblique muscle strain and hip pointer that occurred on a failed check attempt on Nov. 12 versus Ottawa; originally projected to miss three weeks, Allison ultimately had to sit out five (18 games in total) before returning. Then, there was a one-game absence in late January due to a shot block gone bad — Allison returned after the All-Star break. And finally, he missed three games in March after getting “banged up” on a road trip. It was that absence that inspired the “he’s always hurt” rant, as Allison worked to return.
Was it completely fair for Tortorella to saddle Allison with the “always hurt” label? Simply based on 2022-23, probably not; 73 percent availability isn’t ideal, but Allison still suited up for nearly triple the games that he sat out; he played quite a lot last season. Tortorella’s frustration, at its core, seemed to be driven by a belief that Allison’s developmental momentum seemed to invariably be halted by physical ailments.
“It’s hard to be consistent when you’re always hurt. That’s my struggle,” Tortorella explained. “You see him come, you see him come – now he’s out again.”
Tortorella didn’t fully bury Allison as a player on March 16. In fact, Tortorella gives off the impression that he really, really wants to be sold on Allison — he just can’t fully look past the injury issues.
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“Listen, I don’t want to take anything away from his effort, either. I’m not trying to run him down,” he maintained, praising Allison’s willingness to make adjustments to his game and handle what Tortorella admitted had been particularly harsh criticism behind closed doors. “I think he needs to have — for him to be an effective player — he needs to have that (energy and intensity) in him. He just can’t get hurt.”
Tortorella chose not to clarify whether he believes Allison is simply unlucky with injuries, or if a deeper issue exists with him — either his body simply can’t handle high-level hockey, or if he feels that Allison’s injury tolerance is lower than it should be. The comical news conference did open the door for the latter narrative to emerge, regardless of Tortorella’s intent, and for an organization looking to revamp its injury prevention and treatment strategies, it landed with a bit of a sour note.
But Allison’s repeated injury issues are a problem. After all, he turns 26 in January — he’s not a young prospect anymore. Thus far, he’s had at least two collegiate seasons spoiled by injury, his first pro season cut in half because of ankle surgery, his second pro season basically standing as a developmental wash due to a high-ankle sprain and then he missed 22 games in his third pro season. Allison’s development has undeniably been complicated because of all these injuries.
It’s the main reason why, even though he really no longer qualifies as a “young” player, it’s still unclear exactly what caliber of player he is.
Where Allison stands
So what exactly is Allison right now?
In short, he’s a potential power forward with goal-scoring upside, but also an extremely one-dimensional offensive threat at the NHL level thus far. He’s yet to carve out a role on special teams, leaving him currently as an even-strength only forward who averaged under 13 minutes a game in that situation. And he’s a constant injury risk.
Not exactly the most attractive resume at the moment.
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But the thing with Allison is that all one needs to do is watch him play for a week and it’s easy to recognize that there’s something there. Allison shows regular flashes of being a unique kind of hockey player that every NHL club wants on their side — a wrecking ball of a big, aggressive winger who can skate fairly well, play a fearless game centered around goal scoring and attacking the net front, and do it all while hitting, blocking shots and even dropping the gloves on occasion. NHL GMs salivate over players like that.
Allison has yet to put it all together, coming closest in January when he finished with seven points (four goals, three assists) in 13 games and posted a strong 57.77 percent xG For in the process, looking for the first time in 2022-23 like the player who had so impressed in 2020-21. But then … he got hurt, and while he missed just one game with the injury, his play regressed upon his return in February (two points in 10 games with a 42.54 percent xG For).
Basically, Allison is still a work-in-progress, a soon-to-be 26-year-old who appears capable of a breakout but just hasn’t done it yet.
And the problem is that he might be running out of time to do so — at least with this particular organization.
The Flyers are facing a logjam at the RW position, both in the short and long term, and that just happens to be Allison’s ideal spot. Konecny and Tippett are natural right wingers. Cam Atkinson is set to return in 2023-24. Tyson Foerster is banging down the door for an NHL job, and Bobby Brink isn’t far behind him. Garnet Hathaway is now signed through 2024-25. It’s not at all difficult to imagine Allison slotting in as the team’s 13th forward come Game 1 if everyone is healthy, and they choose not to play him on his off-wing. Oh, and at some point down the road, there’s a guy named Matvei Michkov who just may also play Allison’s position.
Ideally, the Flyers would give Allison — a player with the upside to be a rare, highly desired type of NHL player — every chance to reach his potential. But they only have so many spots available in their NHL lineup, only so many players they can focus on developing at one time. With the potential additions of Atkinson, Foerster, Brink and Hathaway to the mix, suddenly it’s nowhere near as easy to just hand Allison regular minutes alongside quality linemates like he received in 2022-23 and hope he takes advantage.
Instead, Allison’s going to have to earn them.
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Which is why 2023-24 looks like a make-or-break year for Allison in the Philadelphia organization. His contract is up next summer, and while the Flyers would retain RFA control over him, it makes for an easy opportunity to cut ties if he just doesn’t seem to fit on the depth chart anymore. And given Allison’s advanced age, he’s basically out of normal prospect runway, even if his injury issues have functionally pushed back his developmental timeline.
This season, Allison needs to start making a consistent impact. He needs to convince his coaches that he should be viewed as a lineup staple and that they need to prioritize him over other, younger prospects. And he really, really needs to stay healthy.
(Photo: Eric Hartline / USA Today)
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