The Flyers tried to trade Travis Sanheim in 2023. Now, he’s a bona fide No. 1 defenseman and poised to make Team Canada.

As Danny Brière stood in the press box in mid-November, this question was posed to the Flyers' general manager: Are you happy you didn’t trade Travis Sanheim?

His Cheshire Cat smile said it all even before he added the magic word, “Absolutely.”

Just a few months into Brière’s tenure, in the summer of 2023, there were rumblings about the defenseman being available. Brière said his phone was buzzing with calls. According to reports, he came close to shipping Sanheim to the St. Louis Blues before Torey Krug’s decision not to waive his no-move clause nixed the move.

“Sometimes you need luck on your side when it comes to that,” Brière told The Inquirer. “He’s a totally different player than he was and credit to him for doing that.”

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Sanheim, 28, ultimately wasn’t traded to the “Show Me State” but has since shown that same stalwart attitude Missourians are known for.

Last season, Sanheim came out like a gangbuster, registering eight points in the first seven games while playing more than 23 minutes a night. He was banged up as the season wore on, but the Flyers’ No. 1 defenseman still played in 81 games and posted career highs in goals (10), assists (34), points (44), shorthanded points (four), and shots on goal (146). Among all skaters who played at least 80 regular-season games, he ranked 13th in average ice time at 23 minutes, 48 seconds.

This season he’s been even better.

“I got motivated and got after it,” he said Monday about the adversity of the past few seasons, roughly 54 hours before he was expected to be named to Canada’s 4 Nations Face-Off roster for February’s best-on-best international tournament. “[I] wanted to be better and wanted to prove people wrong. Very happy with where I’m at today, and I’m just very proud of where my game’s gone.”

The 2024-25 season is only 25 games old but Sanheim already has five goals and 15 points — on pace to break his previous career bests — while averaging the fourth-most minutes in the NHL (25:30). The top-pairing defenseman consistently gets tapped by associate coach Brad Shaw. With a banged-up Flyers blue line, Sanheim skated 30:19 in the shootout loss to the Florida Panthers on Nov. 9 and two nights later played 30:23 in the shootout win over the San Jose Sharks.

A week after that he skated a career-high 31:07, and 4.69 miles against the Colorado Avalanche, at the time the greatest distance skated by a player this season. According to NHL Edge, two of those miles came in the third period, making him the second player since tracking began in 2021-22 to register a two-mile period in the regular season. The 31:07 was the most ice time a Flyer has logged since Luke Shenn played 32:51 in April 2013.

Coach John Tortorella joked two days later he’d play him for 40 minutes. Or, at least, we think it’s a joke.

“The way I looked at Sanny when I first saw him, he was a good skating boy. He skated well. To me, there was nothing else to his game,” Tortorella said after the Flyers’ Nov. 16 win against the Buffalo Sabres, when Sanheim had a goal, an assist, and five shots on net in 27:38 of ice time.

“I don’t think he defended hard. I just didn’t see a whole lot, other than his skating ability, which sticks out. But he has grown and there’s more there. He is impressive.”

Kjell Samuelsson knows all about Sanheim’s growth and development. The former Flyers defenseman and player development coach would travel to Calgary every month to watch a teenage Sanheim play for the Hitmen of the Western Hockey League.

“The first time I met Travis, he was probably 6-foot-2, 170 pounds. So he was just a tall, skinny kid,” Samuelsson recalled recently in a phone interview. Sanheim, by the way, is now listed as 6-4, 222.

“He’s a good person, and he had the ability to become something. The biggest thing was, Travis has always — and I always preached this to whoever was in management for the Flyers — had an unbelievable drive. A drive to get better. When he played in junior in Canada, he said he’s going to do everything he can to become an NHL player.”

Checkmark on that. But with that drive came a lot of work.

When Sanheim was drafted 17th overall by the Flyers in 2014, it was for his offensive game. In his draft year, he had 29 points in 67 games for the Hitmen and was named the team’s co-rookie of the year. A few weeks later, after turning 18 on March 29, he dished out six assists in seven games for the bronze-medal-winning Canadians at the 2014 U18 World Championship. That tournament was the first time he met his good buddy Travis Konecny.

Across the next two seasons, Sanheim notched 133 points in 119 regular-season games for the Hitmen, leading WHL defenseman with 65 points in 2014-15. That same season, he was one of the final cuts by Team Canada for World Juniors and while he was heartbroken, Calgary’s coach Mark French told The Inquirer in 2015, “he came back with a little chip on his shoulder.”

We’re sensing a trend.

“I don’t think Travis was on a lot of people’s radar and our management did a bit of scouting and as soon as he came to camp that first year as a youngster, we knew that he had some raw ability that was untapped,” former Hitmen assistant coach Joel Otto said recently.

It’s been a few years since Otto and Sanheim worked together in the Canadian Rockies, but he recalls Sanheim playing big minutes back then, too. Thanks to his hockey sense and shot, the blueliner was relied upon often to bring the offense, but Otto said, like most junior players, he needed to work on his defensive game. And Sanheim knew it, too.

“The biggest thing with me is I know I’ve got the offensive game to play at the next level,” a then-18-year-old Sanheim told The Inquirer in 2015. “The thing that’s going to stop me the most is my defensive play. It’s something that I really need to focus on to get to the next level.”

So it didn’t hurt that he had a former Stanley Cup winner in Samuelsson to provide guidance.

The pair would watch tape and then hop on the ice at the Scotiabank Saddledome. They’d work on several aspects of Sanheim’s game like his quickness on the offensive blue line, how to get to pucks quicker in the defensive zone, how to move as a defenseman, shooting, and puck retrieval. The two built a relationship and would talk often, which continued even after Sanheim turned pro.

“He had his offensive game, but they had to tone it back a little bit and be more reliable defensively,” Samuelsson said. “And I think when he finally got to play in the NHL on a regular basis, he understood that.”

“For him to be able to adjust and become a reliable defensive player for the Flyers right now, as well as chipping in on the offensive stuff, I think that’s fantastic,” Otto added.

Coming off a strong 2021-22 season, one when he was named the Flyers best defenseman, Sanheim signed an eight-year, $50 million extension ahead of the 2022-23 campaign. But he struggled out of the gate. In February 2023, Tortorella publicly called him out, saying he needed to see more from the defenseman at both ends of the rink, and made him a healthy scratch in Calgary — despite Sanheim’s family being present at the Saddledome.

After starting the season with four goals, 16 points, and a minus-7 rating over the first 57 games, he finished the year with seven points and a plus-2 rating in the 24 games after the benching.

Then came the almost trade and back came the chip on Sanheim’s shoulder. Even from watching his days in the WHL, Otto agrees that Sanheim plays better when he plays more, and that opportunity presented itself after the Flyers traded Ivan Provorov ahead of last season.

But this past summer was different. It came with more focus after Tortorella constantly said last December he just needed to get his top defenseman to the Christmas break so he could rest.

“It’s just another year of the training that I put in,” Sanheim said when asked what he’s done differently to avoid burning out. “And then, just I think, the experience and the ability to play those minutes, getting used to playing those minutes, understanding ways to conserve energy. I’ve had a few more days off, ones [when I’m] taking care of myself in the gym, off the ice, and just trying to do the best I can to set myself up to be able to play those minutes. So far so good.”

Sanheim craves the ice time. “I enjoy playing a lot of minutes,” he said recently. Like his junior days, he is driven to consistently be called upon to help his team succeed, although he said with a laugh, “I don’t know if I could do [30-plus minutes] for 82 games.”

“He is a hard guy not to put on the ice in every situation,” Shaw said in late November. “He’s a guy that’s transporting the puck. He’s seeing the ice. He’s making plays, he’s passing with a level of confidence that’s off the charts. And he plays physical. There’s really nothing that he’s not doing right now.”

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The Flyers’ future is bright and as president Keith Jones recently told The Inquirer, Sanheim is a big part of that.

“The projection on him probably didn’t put him where he is today,” Jones said last week. “He has excelled and exceeded expectations and I couldn’t be prouder of him. It’s just been really fun to watch him take it to another level. He showed signs of it last year and then, to just grab it and go, yeah, those are the types of things you love to see.”

Now the guy who enjoys lots of minutes will get even more, along with the chance to show his immense talent beyond the walls of the Wells Fargo Center.

“I hope Hockey Canada is watching, because if that guy isn’t on that team when they pick that team ... he has just been so impressive,” Tortorella said recently.

And it’s looking like they’ve listened to the grizzled coach. But is Tortorella worried about the added ice time’s potential impact on his top blueliner’s body? “Oh, I don’t give a [expletive] about that ... [to] have an opportunity to play for your country, it does nothing but do great things for you.”

Maybe, just maybe, Otto foreshadowed this moment for the Canadian defenseman back in junior: “We figured he had the World in front of him in terms of his skill, his size, his hockey smarts, and stuff, and he didn’t disappoint.”

O, indeed.