Let’s get it back to the Flyers. Big honor for Travis Sanheim, who was named to Canada’s 4 Nations team along with Travis Konecny. Sanheim is having a great season and got the call to play on a defensive unit that includes Cale Makar, Colton Parayko, Josh Morrissey, Alex Pietrangelo, Shea Theodore, and Devon Toews. Some Canadians, however, feel as though Sanheim did not deserve to be included in the team, including some guy named JFreshHockey, who was then dunked on by Joel Farabee:

Sanheim is not some household hockey name. And how many Flyers games do you think the average NHL writer or diehard fan has watched this season? Probably the same amount of Kraken and Canucks games we’ve watched. So they don’t see a high-level skater with good size who creates offense and is a left-handed shot that can play on the right side. Big minute player, can give you pretty much anything. Put him out there on the Pecoooooo power play or the penalty kill. Sanheim, who was a trade candidate not that long ago, has become a consistent and versatile player.

He’s 28 years old and has improved a lot in a short amount of time, and while he did go to Finland for the 2022 World Championships, he doesn’t have some robust international profile. You could say he’s a late bloomer in that sense, like the soccer player that you know is pretty good but doesn’t get his first international call up until age 26 or 27 or something like that. That sentiment was more or less echoed by team officials:

“He’s one of the guys who put himself on the team.” Amen brother.