Over the years, the Philadelphia Flyers have had some tremendous defensemen. But none have been quite like Kimmo Timonen. He was a player who defied the aging curve so tremendously that we may not see anything like him for a very long time.
Timonen’s Late-Age Dominance
Timonen was traded to the Flyers in the 2007 offseason along with Scott Hartnell for a late first-round pick following a disastrous campaign for the Orange and Black—they had the worst record in the NHL. Wanting to return to playoff success, general manager (GM) Paul Holmgren made a low-risk splash here. Hartnell was great in his own right, making the All-Star Team in 2011-12, but we’ll focus on the defenseman here. Acquired at 32 years of age, the odds of long-term success were low—he broke the model anyway.
From 2008-2014, Timonen played in 519 games for the Flyers, scoring 38 goals and 232 assists for 270 points and plus-44 rating. He was an excellent small, offensively-minded defender who was also great in his own zone. Quarterbacking Philadelphia’s power play every season during that span, they had an average finish of between sixth and seventh in the league in power play percentage (PP%). Since his departure, the team has had just one finish in the top 10 in PP% over 10 seasons.
Timonen was vital to the Flyers’ postseason success during his time, being arguably the best defenseman on the team over six runs to the playoffs and two appearances in the Eastern Conference Final. The great part about his arrival is that the timing was perfect for the analytics era—it coincided with his debut with the Orange and Black in 2007-08. Because of this, we can better quantify how good the veteran was.
Timonen’s best numbers were from 2011-2014, so that’s what we’ll list. But the important thing to note here is his age. Starting out at 36 and ending at 39 years old, to say the Finnish defender aged gracefully is an understatement.
Below, we’ll take a look at where Timonen ranked at even strength (EV) among defenders with 1,000 minutes of time on ice (TOI) from 2011-2014. The stats we’ll use are points per 60 (P/60), relative expected goals percentage (xGF% Rel), relative Corsi percentage (CF% Rel), relative goals percentage (GF% Rel), and average TOI (ATOI).
A glossary for the advanced stats is included here. Basically, the middle three numbers measure a player’s impact on their own…
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